^WM 


» 


^^rzA 


lift] 


'\,'J 


yj- 


i^^t 


m 


SOCIAL  WEALTH: 

THE 

Sole  Fsctors  and  Exact  Ratios  in  its 
Acquirement  and  Apportionment. 


BY 


J.   K.    INGALLS. 


In  proceeding  toward  any  given  point,  there  is  always  one  line  which  is 
shortest  —  The  Straight;  so,  in  the  condufl  of  Human  Affairs,  there  is 
always  one  course  which  is  best  —  The  Just. 


New  York: 
SOCIAL  SCIENCE   PUBLISHING  CO., 
33  Clintox  Place. 
1885. 


Copyrighted,  1885,  by  J.  K.  Ingalls. 


«  »    • 


»•     •  *  • 


c«.     «.«-•.«,««.««< 


•  •  ft       »  • 
«  •  •      •     * 

•  •  •  •  •  • 

•  •  •      • 


f5 


CONTENTS. 


3       Prefoxx.  -----  5 

CHAPTER  I. 

Introductory.  -  -  _  _  7 

CHAPTER  II. 

Economic  Schools.       -  -  -  -  32 

A  Brief  Review  of  their  Origin  and  Growth. 
CHAPTER  III. 
Else  and  Growth  of  Capitalism.  -  -  40 

CHAPTER  IV. 

Unearned  Increase.  _  _  _  48 

Prolil.— Interest. — Rent. 

CHAPTER  V. 

\        Conservation  of  Wealth.  -  -  _  76 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Tools  and  Improved  Machinery.  -  83 

CHAPTER  vn. 
The  Nature  of  Wages.  -  -  -  0(5 

criAPTFiR  vin. 
Private  and  Social  Wealth.  -  -    ■  lOO 

CI  I. \  ITER   IN. 
Land  Ownership.  -  -  -  -         Vl\ 

I'llAI'TKIJ    X. 

Private  Property  in  Land.  -  loo 


*>oom^^ 


IV  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XI. 

Capital  and  the  Productive  Factors.  -  -         168 

Active  Factor  in  Production.— Passive  Factor  in  Production. 
CHAPTER  Xn. 

Partnersliip  and  Co-operation.  -  -         195 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

Law  of  Contracts.  .  _  _  205 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

Money  and  Credit.       -  -  -  -         216 

CHAPTER  XV. 

Of  Value  or  Economic  Ratios.       -  -  228 

Ratios    in  Compensation. — Ratios   in  Exchange. — Values  of 
Land  and  Labor  under  Commercial  Subjection 

CHAPTER  XVL 
Taxation  as  a  Remedy.  _  _  _         255 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

Reforms,  Not  Remedies.  -  -  265 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

Suggestions  to  Legislators.      -  -  -         286 

CHAPTER  XIX. 
Conclusion.  _  _  _  _  301 

APPENDIX. 
Summary   of   Definitions :    Economic   and   Iso- 

nomic.        _  _  -  _  _        311 


PREFACE. 


The  purpose  for  which  these  pages  are  offered  to 
the  public  is  simply  to  direct  inquiry  to  questions 
intimately  related  to  all  human  life  and  emplo3^ment, 
so  that  no  useful  member  of  society  need  remain  in- 
different to  them.  We  are  living  under  a  system  of 
capitalistic  aggrandizement,  or  commercial  monarch- 
ism,  which  has  no  parallel  in  the  history  of  the  race. 
Our  teachers  in  Economics  do  not  disavow,  if  they 
do  not  expressly  put  forth,  the  claim  that  this  im- 
poverishment of  the  many  to  enrich  the  few  is  in 
accordance  with  the  orderly  evolution  of  society,  and 
in  harmony  Avith  the  natural  laws  of  trade. 

Our  political  savants  offer  us  nothing  but  what  is 
most  delusive  and  contradictory,  while  servilely  bow- 
ing to  the  demands  of  a  dominant  plutocracy.  On 
the  other  hand,  we  have  importations  of  tlie  thought 
of  European  Radicals,  Communists,  Nihilists,  with 
suggestions  of  revolution,  and  of  measures  of  reform 
ranging  from  Anarchism  on  tlie  one  hand,  to  the 
entire  control  of  all  social  industry  by  the  state  on 
the  otlior. 

In  this  conflict  of  thought  and  nescience,  it  has 
seemed  to  me  tliere  must  be  some  Natural  Relation 
between  the  worker  and  the  soil  from  wliicli  all  must 
subsist;  that  there  is  a  principle  of  law  which  will 


VI  PKEFACE. 

give  an  equitable  sliare  of  the  products  of  industry 
to  each  who  shares  the  labor,  and  a  just  principle  of 
agreement  and  consent  in  regard  to  such  production 
and  division. 

I  am  persuaded  there  is  also  a  development  of 
these  laws  subject  to  "arrest,"  to  "retardation  and 
acceleration,"  and  that  to  discover  and  record  their 
growth,  is  the  only  true  province  of  the  Legislator, 
not  the  manufacture  of  statutory  enactments.  My 
aim  has  been  to  direct  the  attention  of  all,  rich  or 
poor,  learned  or  unlearned,  to  this  line  of  thought. 
If  in  any  degree  I  have  succeeded,  my  labor  will  not 
have  been  in  vain. 

There  are  doubtless  great  social  wrongs  to  be 
righted,  great  injustices  to  be  corrected;  but  when 
with  reasoning  minds  we  read  the  great  lessons  of 
history,  we  discover  that  Science,  or  exact  and  sys- 
temized  knowledge,  has  been  the  great  means  of 
progress  in  every  field  and  in  every  age,  and  are  as- 
sured that  through  intelligent  industry  Nature  has 
provided  for  the  satisfaction  of  all  rational  human 
wants.  Industrial  Freedom,  and  that  only,  can 
change  the  conditions  which  afflict  the  toiling  poor, 
or  give  to  justly  acquired  competence  its  required 
security  and  conservation. 

Glenoha,  N.  Y.,  July  21,  1885. 


SOCIAL    WEALTH 


CHAPTEE  I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

No  SYSTEMATIC  attempt  lias  ever  been  made  to 
reduce  to  a  science  the  phenomena  which  are  pre- 
sented in  social  industry  and  the  allotment  of  social 
wealth,  which  embodies  the  normal  relations  of  the 
active  agent,  man,  to  nature  and  to  the  opportunities 
and  potencies  which  the  earth  yields  to  his  control. 
Only  fragmentary  parts  of  any  history  of  industry 
are  known  to  us,  and  nothing  but  the  general  features 
of  its  early  development  can  now  be  ascertained. 
Society  itself  is  but  an  outgrowth  of  an  industry 
which  has  really  determined  the  character  of  social 
progress  from  stage  to  stage.  The  subjection  of 
labor  has  meant,  in  every  period,  the  debasement 
and  destruction  of  the  people.  Through  outrage  and 
fraud  industrial  growth  has  been  checked,  and  its 
power  to  elevate  mankind  thwarted  and  destroyed. 
The  grossest  ignorance  and  narrowest  private  self- 
seeking  have  alone  sought  to  escape  work  and  its 
duties,  and  the  most  brutal  ambition  was  required  to 
degrade  and  enslave  it. 

Busied  with  tlie  records  of  glorified  conquest,  the 
pomp  of  kings,  and  the  displays  of  martial  triumphs, 
the  general  historian  has  had  but  little  to  say  of  tliat 


8  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

industrial  life  of  the  peoj)le  wliicli  lias  sustained 
while  it  has  had  to  suifer  all  the  calamities  of  war. 
From  the  glimpses  he  has  afforded  us,  however,  we 
see  clearly  the  subjected  and  enslaved  condition 
which  it  has  ever  occupied ;  a  condition  attempted 
to  be  justified  by  the  casuistry  of  each  apologist  for 
tyranny,  and  even  by  political  economists — that  men 
will  not  work  unless  compelled  to  (by  the  lash  or 
fear  of  starvation) ;  thus  making  the  unworthy  desire 
for  the  product  of  another's  labor  the  excuse  for 
enslaving  him,  and  the  degradation  resulting  there- 
from the  justification  for  its  own  j)erpetuation. 
Through  every  form  of  barbarism,  feudalism,  and 
civilism,  industry  has  been  mostly  enslaved — much 
of  the  time  in  a  gross  material  form  ;  always  through 
force,  fraud,  and  fictions  of  law  and  positive  class- 
legislation.  The  savage,  who  at  the  same  time  sought 
excitement  and  sustenance  in  the  chase,  with  feeble 
mentality  left  those  inclined  to  work  at  liberty  to 
perfect  some  product,  since,  whenever  through  lust 
or  envy  he  desired,  he  could  capture  and  appropriate 
it  by  taking  the  life  of  the  j)roducer.  Under  bar- 
barism, compulsory  servitude  became  well-nigh  uni- 
versal, and  remains  now,  as  ever,  the  distinguishing 
trait  of  that  stage  of  development.  Here  industry 
begins  to  assume  some  form  of  organization,  and  is 
directed  wdth  some  order  and  sj'stem.  Functions 
and  powers  were  absorbed,  and  dominion  assumed 
by  the  strong  and  cunning,  and  various  castes  were 
established  to  perpetuate  the  independence  of  a  few 
and  the  subjugation  of  the  industrious  many.  Under 
civilism,  industry,  as  it  became  freed  from  the  pecu- 
liar institution  of  slavery,  evinces  a  greater  tendency 


INTRODUCTORY.  9 

to  organization,  and  under  a  system  of  bets  or  bribes, 
commonly  called  wages,  effects  "  division  of  labor," 
and  a  power  of  production  unknown  to  tlie  earlier 
forms.  But  without  any  intelligent  or  equitable  sys- 
tem of  division  of  products,  its  results  are  scarcely, 
if  at  all,  more  beneficent,  often  resulting  in  what 
political  economists  call  ore/'-production,  as  well  as 
in  the  production  of  things  which  are  non-wealth,  or 
destructive  to  social  well-being.  TJie  earlier  and 
barbaric  forms  of  slavery  extend  to  our  own  time, 
and  up  to  a  quite  recent  date  have  existed  in  the 
most  advanced  nations.  Slavery,  the  slave  trade, 
and  privateering,  or  warfare  for  plunder,  were  known 
as  late  as  our  fathers'  time,  and  were  the  foundation 
of  most  of  the  large  fortunes  which  are  more  than  a 
half-century  old. 

Civilism,  thus  far,  has  hardly  done  more  than  to 
refine  and  render  more  subtle  the  subjection  of  la- 
bor to  lordly  will.  From  conquests  with  bludgeons, 
swords  and  spears,  as  in  the  earlier  ages,  it  has  in- 
augurated a  war  of  cunning  and  fraud,  Avhose  weapons 
are  technical  terms,  shrewd  devices,  class  legislation, 
and  forms  of  law  recognizing  no  rights  as  supreme 
but  those  of  property  and  "  the  law  of  the  market." 
But  an  era  of  science  has  at  length  dawned,  and  in- 
dustry stands  revealed,  though  not  yet  popularly 
acknowledged,  as  the  prime  agent  of  all  growth,  and 
of  every  element  in  social  refinement  and  j^rogress. 
And  in  the  absence  of  any  system  of  economics  which 
even  recognizes  the  relations  between  liuman  work 
and  the  complementary  material  agents,  there  arises 
a  demand  for  an  analysis  of  tlie  elements  of  industry, 
which  science  shows  to  be    the  basis  of  all  social 


10  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

economy  anil  ethics.  Careful  investigation  into  all 
the  motives  to  human  action,  the  relation  of  man  to 
the  earth,  the  principle  of  conservation,  by  which 
accumulation  is  determined,  as  well  as  division,  must 
have  a  place.  There  is  required  in  this  scientific 
age  a  systematic  and  thorough  adjustment  of  the 
subject  of  industrial  evolution.  We  have  social,  po- 
litical, and  ethical  systems  as  perfect  as  they  can  be, 
while  our  disintegrated  and  wholly  empirical  system 
of  industry  remains.  We  have  no  comprehensive, 
nor  indeed  comprehensible,  explanation  of  the  indus- 
trial phenomena  by  which  the  conscientious  man  can 
even  guess  when  he  has  done  his  duty,  or  the  moral- 
ist determine  the  simplest  question  thereunder.  As 
little  can  the  politician  or  civilian,  however  inclined, 
honestly  decide  whether  certain  measures  will  result 
in  more  good  than  evil,  more  happiness  than  misery, 
to  mankind ;  for  the  simple  reason  that  religion, 
morality,  and  civilization  are  not  the  sources  of 
human  progress,  but  are  the  blossoms  and  fruitage 
of  the  social  growth  itself,  which  has  its  root  in 
human  industry.* 

Tlie  industrial  problem  is  therefore  the  funda- 
mental one.  That  the  wealth  of  society  is  'most 
unequally  distributed  is  a  fact  so  patent  and  univers- 
ally admitted  that  it  is  only  necessary  to  call  atten- 
tion to  it.  That  the  work  which  creates  it  is  rewarded 
in  no  just  proportion,  but  rather  by  an  inverse  ratio 
to  its  importance  and  utility,  as  well  as  to  its  severity 
and  repulsiveness,  is  equally  undenied  and  undeni- 


*  "  "Where  industry  is  wanting,  there  can  neitlier  be  lionesty  toward 
men  nor  true  worship  of  the  Infinite  Worker."— J.  H.  Hunt. 


INTRODUCTORY.  11 

able.  The  most  arduous  labor  under  our  mixed 
economics  *  is  usually  the  poorest  paid,  while  often 
the  light  and  trivial,  and  even  the  hurtful,  is  fre- 
quently rewarded  with  a  fabulous  income.f 

The  only  qualification  ever  associated  with  the 
universal  admission  of  these  statements  is,  that  all 
have  equal  opportunity,  and  that  since  some  work  up 
from  poverty  to  wealth,  and  take  the  great  prizes  in 
the  business  lottery  or  race,  all  can  do  so,  and  if  any 
fail,  it  is  their  own  fault !  Economists  do  not  attempt 
to  deny  the  inequalities  of  present  division.  They 
merely  explain  in  a  superficial  way  how  the  inequal- 
ity comes  about,  without  reference  to  the  fundamental 
cause,  or  even  suggesting  any  change  in  the  system 
which  produces  it,  unless  it  be  to  apjily  a  little 
more  of  the  same  thing — special  legislation  and  class 
rule. 

But  even  the  science  of  economics  starts  upon  the 

*  While  claiming  to  be  "  aa  exact  physical  science,"  it  treats  "  values  " 
indiscriminately,  whether  increased  or  dmiinislied  by  supply  and  de- 
mand, or  by  tlie  interference  of  unreasoning  executive  or  legislative 
will;  by  sc-ircity  of  a  season,  or  tlie  cornering  of  a  market,  or  by  any 
speculative  conspiracy;  by  the  natural  laws  of  trade,  or  by  the  subject- 
ing to  the  rule  of  the  market  "by  act  of  parliament"  and  "force  of 
arms,"  things  foreign  t«  its  sway;  and  wliether  relating  to  tlie  com- 
modities which  may  be  increased  indefinitely,  or  to  ihc  Ijuyer  and  seller, 
the  men  tiiemselves,  or  to  llie  laud,  of  which  no  increased  supply  is 
possible. 

•(■  "  It  is  inequnlUy  in  tlie  wages  of  those  who  do  the  work  of  Iho 
world  wliieii  culls  for  the  allenlion  l)()lli  of  stmleiits  and  sUitcsmen,  and 
incqualily  in  what  llie  wages  will  buy."     Kuw akd  Atktxson. 

By  the  lati.er  ho  means  that  tlie  man  wiio  gels  the  lowest  wages 
pays  the  highest,  the  retail prin;,  for  what  he  buys.  Altenlioii  is  cullcil 
for,  also,  to  the  dispnjporlionato  wages  of  those  who  do  noHC  of  "the 
work  of  the  world." 


12  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

ground  that  tlie  real  laws  of  trade  tend  constantly  to 
equilibrium,  or  to  a  mean  ratio,  i.  e.,  to  the  elimina- 
tion of  profit  and  the  exchanging  of  commodities  at 
cost  of  production.  "  Free  competition,"  it  is  claimed, 
can  alone  secure,  and  will  constantly  tend  to  secure, 
equitable  exchanges.  Why,  then,  should  indispens- 
able labor  more  and  more  be  compelled  to  exchange 
itself  for  what  itself  has  created,  at  a  greater  and 
greater  disadvantage  ?  This-  is  a  question  it  makes 
no  effort  to  explain,  and,  so  far  as  the  prominent 
writers  are  concerned,  seems  to  be  deemed  unworthy 
of  attention.  Of  course  no  process  of  exchanging 
equivalents  could  have  produced  the  disparities  we 
notice.  No  fair  trade  could  have  placed  the  values 
which  each  of  two  parties  contributed  wholly  in  the 
hands  of  one.  No  answer  is  furnished  by  the  cur- 
rent commonplace,  that  it  is  accounted  for  by  the 
superior  industry  and  frugality  of  the  one,  and  the 
idleness,  extravagance,  and  dissipation  of  the  other, 
for  the  successful  are  not  more  industrious,  as  a  class, 
than  the  unfortunate  poor,  and  by  far  are  more  given 
to  extravagance  and  dissipation.  But  there  is  no 
equality  of  opportunity  under  existing  laws  and  cus- 
toms. In  the  race  for  wealth,  which  the  economist 
seems  as  unable  to  define  as  to  guide,  the  toiler  is 
most  heavily  handicapped  in  the  very  start.  It  is 
quite  true  that  one  in  a  thousand  or  so,  who  has  un- 
usual strength  or  cunning,  distances  his  competitors 
and  gets  to  take  place  with  those  more  favored ;  the 
disadvantages  lessening  as  he  works  to  the  front. 
But  why  should  the  weak  be  handicapped,  while  the 
strong  carry  no  extra  weight,  but  are  helped  on? 
The  only  reply  vouchsafed  is  that   "it  has  always 


INTRODUCTORY.  13 

been  so,  and  always  will  be."  That  men  are  found 
willing  to  do  the  most  repulsive  work,  and  even  that 
which  is  deleterious  to  health  and  tends  greatly  to 
shorten  human  life,  for  wages  less  than  that  which  is 
paid  a  super jfluous  clerk  for  services  of  trifling  utility, 
proves  that  free  competition  has  little  or  nothing  to 
do  with  the  adjustment  of  labor  to  place  in  the  work- 
ing world,  and  that  forced  competitorship  is  only 
fully  realized  at  the  very  bottom  of  the  industrial 
scale. 

It  is  overlooked  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  ex- 
changes which  take  place  in  the  world  are  in  nowise 
affected  by  tlie  rule  of  the  mar'ket,  that  each  one  shall 
get  the  most  he  can  for  what  he  parts  with,  while 
giving  the  least  possible  for  what  he  requires.  In- 
deed but  a  small  joroportion  of  the  transfers  in  social 
life  are  subject  to  competitive  offers  at  all ;  and  be- 
sides, in  those  transfers  which  are  so  subject,  one 
part}'  must  yield  to  the  other  in  each  transaction  all 
the  profit  which  is  realized  by  the  other;  otherwise 
the  exchange  would  be  reciprocal,  no  matter  what 
the  nominal  profit,  and  the  benefit  being  mutual,  no 
inequality  could  result.  All  services  in  the  famil}', 
amounting  to  quite  one-half  of  all  labor,  are  non- 
competitive. In  retail  trade  most  prices  will  be  found 
rustomarn  rather  than  competitive,  and  whenever 
combination  exists  among  dealers  for  reserved  2^r ices, 
competition  ceases  to  operate  altogether. 

Prof.  Henry  Dunning  Macleod  has  written  a  book 
— "Elements  of  Economics" — mainly  to  prove  tliat 
value  is  wholly  caused  by  "  demand  and  supply,"  and 
that  labor  is  "  but  one  of  the  accidents  of  value  and 
of  wealth."     From  the  standpoint  of  the  trader  this 


14  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

is  very  true,  but  from  no  other.  It  is  by  no  means 
my  intention  to  enter  upon  a  fruitless  discussion 
here  of  the  origin  of  value,  or  of  its  true  definitions, 
for  the  word  has  a  score  or  more.*  He  suggests 
that  a  man  might  find  a  diamond  worth  a  million 
dollars  some  lucky  day,  with  very  little  labor;  though 
he  must  have  known  that  the  amount  of  labor,  or 
product  of  labor,  which  some  one  is  willing  to  give 
for  it  after  it  is  found  is  what  alone  makes  it  val- 
uable ;  and  that  if  responsible  parties  would  under- 
take to  produce  diamonds  of  equal  intrinsic  merit 
for  the  price  of  a  day's  labor,  this  diamond  would 
bring  no  more.  It  is  not  the  day's  labor  of  the  lucky 
finder  which  determines  the  price  of  this  particular 
gem,  but  the  unsuccessful  thousands  of  days'  search 
which  are  required  before  another  like  it  can  be 
found.  To  show  that  irregularity  of  demand  and 
supply  are  the  immediate  and  inciting  cause  of  the 
fluctuation  in  prices  proves  little,  since  the  supply 
which  furnishes  the  market,  and  the  means  which 
alone  make  the  demand  effective,  are  both  supplied 
by  labor ;  and  a  certain  ratio  would  exist  between 

*  Value,  as  defined  by  economists,  is  the  ratio  between  two  or  more 
exchangeable  commodities,  and  is  generally  hmited  to  cost  of  produc- 
tion, or  vibrates  to  either  side  by  fluctuation  of  market.  The  specific 
value  of  a  particular  thing  at  a  particular  time  and  place  is  approxi- 
mately the  cost  of  reproducing  or  replacing  it  in  the  market,  rather  than 
the  actual  cost  of  that  identical  article,  which  might  have  been  excep- 
tionally great  or  small.  I  pointed  out  to  Mr.  Josiah  Warren,  nearly 
forty  years  ago,  that  profits,  rent,  and  interest  entered  into  "cost  of  pro- 
duction," and  that  while  they  have  a  warranty  for  being  in  our  laws  and 
customs,  the  enunciation  of  his  formula  "cost  the  limit  of  price,"  could 
have  no  practical  effect  except  to  direct  attention  to  these  strongly  in- 
trenched wrongs. 


INTRODUCTORY.  15 

the  two  things  exchanged  corresponding  to  the 
amount  of  hibor  required  to  reproduce  them  if  sokl 
at  a  customary  price  to  which  there  was  no  fluctua- 
tion. So  that  if  "  supply  and  demand  "  are  the  "  sole 
cause  of  value,"  labor  is  the  sole  source  both  of  the 
supj^Jy  and  of  the  means  which  makes  the  demand 
effective,  or  even  j^ossible. 

The  triumph  which  Macleod  claims  over  Adam 
Smith  is  not  over  his  apothegm  that  "  labor  was  the 
original  price  paid  for  all  things,"  but  over  Smith's 
omission  to  show  how  it  occurred,  if  his  premises 
were  true,  that  all  social  wealth  came  into  the  j)os- 
session  of  those  who  do  no  labor.  It  is  easy  to  see 
how  this  became  so  under  a  system  of  chattel  slavery, 
because  the  laborers  were  owned  by  the  capitalists, 
and  all  that  was  produced  over  and  above  the  cost  of 
the  slaves'  maintenance  went  to  the  slavelord  by  the 
custom  and  statutes  of  the  times.  Labor,  which  in 
this  resjDect  scarcely  differed  from  the  services  of 
horses  and  oxen,  in  its  economic  aspect,  was  still  the 
essential  thing  in  all  production  and  in  all  exchanges. 
Mr.  Macleod  is  careful  to  point  out  that  production 
"means  placing  any  commodity  in  the  market"  at 
the  time  and  place  where  the  demand  exists. 

The  spirit  of  trade,  or  "  law  of  the  market,"  does 
not  look  further  than  this,  and  even  contests  the 
right  of  the  true  owner  to  reclaim  goods  when  they 
have  been  once  sold  in  open  market  by  parties  who 
had  no  title  to  them.  But  nothing  can  be  more  cer- 
tain than  that  commodities  cannot  be  produced  in 
market  unless  they  have  been  transported  and  stored 
by  labor,  nor  unless  such  other  lal)()r  has  been  ap- 
plied   to  them  as  will   render   them  desirable  and 


16  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

fitted  for  consumption.  While  fully  admitting  that 
under  our  system  of  land-tenure  and  of  commercial 
custom  the  distinctions  he  makes  are  logical  if  not 
profound,  it  is  difficult  to  see  the  sequence  of  his  de- 
ductions, or  how  they  in  any  way  affect  the  general 
proposition  that  "  work  is  the  parent  of  wealth ;"  for 
although  "  incorporeal  wealth,"  the  "  debts  created 
by  bankers  with  which  to  buy  money  and  other 
debts,"  and  the  formation  of  knowledge,  which  he 
deems  "  the  creation  of  luealth  out  of  nothing,"  may  be 
exchangeable  and  have  price,  it  is  only  because  that 
in  the  last  analysis  they  can  command  labor,  as  a 
title  to  a  slave,  or  of  a  superior  cunning  which  can 
obtain  labor  without  reward,  carries  with  it  the  price 
of  so  much  labor  as  it  commands.  He  has  elaborated 
his  thought  that  wealth  is  constituted  of  a  great 
number  of  things  which  have  no  connection  with 
labor,  "  and  that  no  change  of  labor  or  cost  of  pro- 
duction has  any  influence  on  value,  unless  tJiey  pro- 
dicce  a  change  in  the  relation  of  supply  and  deinand^ 
The  italics  are  mine.  Now,  since  this  is  precisely 
what  labor  always  does  ;  that  "  intensity  of  demand," 
when  effective,  is  wholly  due  to  over-production  of 
the  thing  or  things  offered  in  purchase  of  commodi- 
ties ;  and  since  the  limitation  of  supply  is  caused  by 
the  Mnc?er-production  of  that  which  is  desired,  he  has 
established  his  "  compound  ratio,"  but  which,  how- 
ever important  to  a  technical  understanding  of  the 
fluctuations  of  prices,  has  no  bearing  whatever  upon 
the  more  fundamental  question  as  to  the  natural 
sequence  of  work  and  wealth. 

This  author  is  equally  exact  and  equally  superficial 
in  his  statement  that  "  wealth  consists  exclusively  of 


INTRODUCTORY.  17 

exchangeable  rights ;"  drawing  no  distinction  between 
natural  rights  and  legal  rights,  nor  between  individual 
and  social  wealth.  He  sajs,  "  Property  is  not  a  thing, 
but  a  right ;  it  includes  all  kinds  of  rights  which 
can  be  exercised  over  anything,  and  is  equivalent  to 
absolute  ownership."  It  is  hence  legitimate  to  infer 
that  he  recognizes  no  rights  but  those  of  property ; 
and  since  he  says,  in  the  same  connection  (see  book 
ii.,  §61)  that  "  jurisjarudence  is  the  science  of  rights," 
we  are  justified  in  concluding  that  neither  in  eco- 
nomics nor  jurisprudence  is  there  any  place  for  the 
rights  of  man,  or  equities  other  than  those  connected 
with  the  control  of  property.  Now,  his  main  as- 
sumptions throughout  can  have  no  logical  basis 
except  upon  the  theory  that  cdl  legislation  and  all 
governmental  interference,  as  well  as  all  customs,  in 
whatever  country,  clime,  or  period,  are  scientific  ex- 
ponents of  rights. 

The  former  slave-holding  oligarchy  asserted  that 
"  that  was  property  or  rights  which  the  law  made 
so."  But  that  these  "elements  of  economics"  work 
with  the  same  facility  with  chattel  slavery,  and  under 
every  form  of  despotism,  shows  its  value  (not  market) 
as  a  factor  in  political  and  social  science.  But  we 
must  not  forget  that  this  "  science  of  dicker,"  as  an 
able  exponent  once  denominated  it  in  my  hearing,  is 
only  applicable  to  the  "trade"  side  of  commerce — 
that  which  is  ej6fected  by  competitive  processes.  As 
we  have  already  seen,  liowever,  only  a  certain  portion 
of  exchanges  are  effected  by  that.  For  where  combi- 
nation exists,  as  in  the  family  or  community,  or 
among  trade  guilds,  syndicates,  or  corporations,  it 
does  not  operate.     The  highest  salaried  offices  are 


18  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

often  awarded  as  favors,  and  among  most  institutions 
sinecures  are  abundant.  Opportunity  and  place  are 
accorded  out  of  friendship,  family  relation,  personal 
influence,  etc.,  so  that  competition  is  the  exception 
rather  than  the  rule  in  nearly  all  human  affairs,  ex- 
cept in  the  employment  of  the  most  dependent  and 
depressed  labor,  and  in  the  practice  of  rack-rent. 
Even  in  trade  a  friend  will  give  a  friend  the  advan- 
tage over  a  stranger,  and  a  dealer  in  stocks,  or  a 
gambler  in  securities  or  produce,  will  often  give  a 
personal  favorite  "  points  "  that  will  enable  him  to 
evade  the  law  of  the  market.  There  are  "  deadheads  " 
in  every  train,  in  every  conveyance,  or  place  of  social 
gathering.  Its  operation,  even  where  most  complete, 
among  unskilled  laborers,  is  by  no  means  universal, 
and  by  no  honest  employment  of  language  can  be 
called/ree  competition,  as  applied  to  them,  since  in 
selling  his  labor,  the  laborer,  as  we  shall  see  here- 
after, is  compelled  to  sell  that  which,  on  its  passive 
side,  is  in  the  possession  already  of  the  party  or 
class  to  whom  he  sells. 

As  explained  by  Macleod,  and  even  by  Adam  Smith, 
Kicardo,  Mill,  etc.,  economics  embraces  but  a  section 
or  branch  of  social  economy.  It  is  as  if  a  naturalist 
should  treat  of  a  tree,  but  make  a  thorough  study  of 
but  a  single  branch  or  limb.  This  would  give  us  a 
very  good  idea  of  the  branch,  but  would  not  neces- 
sarily give  us  any  knowledge  of  the  character  of  the 
trunk,  or  of  the  root,  or  of  their  relation  to  the  soil, 
from  whose  resources  the  branches  had  been  grown 
and  sustained  through  the  root  and  trunk.  It  would 
be  difficult  to  proceed  without  some  reference  to 
these,  however,  and  so  the  economists  of  the  earlier 


INTRODUCTORY.  19 

scliool  admit,  in  a  general  waj,  that  labor  produces 
all  wealth,  but  omit  to  follow  the  thought  to  its 
legitimate  conclusion,  and  suggest  a  number  of  ways 
in  which  values  arise  and  wealth  accumulates,  in 
which  labor  is  but  an  unimportant  factor,  if  indeed  a 
factor  at  all. 

It  is  upon  the  law  of  supply  and  demand  that 
the  whole  science  is  now  pivoted.  This  law,  doubt- 
less, "would  operate  as  contended,  provided  the  con- 
ditions existed  and  were  all  which  existed  or  ef- 
fected exchange  of  services,  commodities,  or  wealth. 
But  the  truth  is  that  directly  opposite  conditions 
always  exist,  and  that  the  assumed  conditions  could 
not  possiblj^  exist,  except  under  circumstances  which, 
it  may  be  said,  never  or  very  rarely  occur.  As  Mr. 
Thornton  has  elaborately  shown,  in  his  work  on 
"Labor,"  the  only  circumstance  under  which  sup- 
ply and  demand  could  have  the  claimed  opera- 
tion would  be  where  all  merchantable  commodities 
were  offered  daily  for  what  they  would  bring  at 
public  vendue,  and  where  there  icas  no  reserve  price. 
He  has  shown,  moreover,  that  the  great  proportion 
of  nearly  ever}'  form  of  wealth  is  always  held  in  re- 
sfrve,  onl}'  the  most  perishable  products  being  freely 
offered,  and  they  are  very  often  thrown  into  the  river 
to  remove  a  glut,  but  that  labor  itself  is  sold  under 
wholly  different  conditions  ;  that  for  the  laborer  the 
law  of  supply  and  demand  has  a  significance  wliich 
it  has  and  can  have  for  no  other  dealer,  inasmuch  as 
v/hile  tlio  ordinary  dealer  who  may  not  be  able  to 
sell  his  stock  to-day  will  be  a])le  to  sell  it  to-morrow, 
often  for  more  tlian  he  woukl  have  been  willing  to 


20  SOCIAL   WEALTH. 

sell  it  for  io-daj,  tlie  laborer  must  sell  his  labor 
to-day,  or  it  is  wholly  lost.* 

From  a  different  premise,  but  by  a  similar  course 
of  reasoning,  Karl  Marx  arrived  at  a  similar  conclu- 
sion.    He  showed  that,  lacking  opportunity,  land,  or 


*X()t  only  does  this  assumed  law  of  supply  and  demand  utterly  fail 
in  its  salutary  effect  upon  labor  denied  the  Use  of  the  land  while  exert- 
ing to  tlie  full  tlie  baneful  elTecls  of  a  forced  competition  in  its  operation, 
but  upon  laud  treated  as  property  or  capital  it  has  an  opposite  effect. 
Increased  demand  not  only,  as  with  commodities,  begets  a  temporary 
rise  of  price,  but  a  continuous  rise.  Demand  does  not,  as  with  com- 
modities, beget  an  increased,  or  any  supply  whatever.  Thus,  while 
prices  of  commodities  fluctuate  and  recede  as  much  or  more  than  they 
have  appreciated,  through  a  brisk  demand  which  stimulates  production, 
the  price  of  land  goes  constantly'  upward  with  increased  demand,  no 
production  being  possible  or  conceivable,  except  in  regard  to  lands  trans- 
ferred from  a  general  to  a  specific  use. 

Of  all  commodities  which  can  be  held  at  a  reserve  price,  land  is  the 
chief.  It  may  be  said  it  is  always  held  so,  the  exceptions  are  so  few. 
The  reason  is  obvious.  The  land  yields  natural  productions,  and  while 
labor  is  excluded  from  possession,  it  will  gladly  purchase  the  privilege 
Oi  gathering  these  products,  or  of  applying  itself  to  the  cultivation  of 
more  desirable  products.  The  land  is  a  more  safe  investment,  and  may 
be  held  "for  a  rise"  with  less  risk  than  any  commodity.  It  does  not, 
like  other  commodities,  deteriorate  in  quality  or  shrink  in  quantity'.  As 
a  general  thing,  land  is  held  everywhere  for  a  rise.  Where  too  much  is 
attempted  to  be  carried,  it  is  true,  parties  may  have  to  unload,  and  when 
mortgages  are  being  foreclosed,  or  in  business  crises,  there  may  be  a 
break  in  value,  but  it  will  only  last  while  the  lands  are  passing  into 
hands  able  to  carry  tliem.  There  is  a  considerable  class  of  persons 
who  often  buy  but  never  sell  real  estate.  In  every  city,  town,  and 
village  they  are  found,  and  indeed  in  all  the  country  as  well.  Polit- 
ical economists  insist  on  treating  both  land  and  labor  as  both  capital 
and  as  commodities,  yet  the  one,  as  we  have  seen,  i^  mainly  bej'ond 
the  law  of  supply  and  demand,  and  the  other  is  subject  not  to  a  free 
but  a  forced  competition.  Could  a  more  valueless  science  be  invoked 
to  solve  any  industrial  problem? 


INTRODUCTOKY.  21 

capital  to  exert  his  force  upon,  tlie  laborer  could  not 
compete,  because  his  labor  could  not  be  freel}'  applied, 
and  that  the  competition  to  which  he  is  subjected 
with  others  situated  unfavorably  as  himself  is  not  a 
free  but  &  forced  competition. 

This  is  also  quite  true,  but  the  exact  position  is 
this  :  Labor,  although  the  active  factor  in  produc- 
tion, without  laud  and  opportunity,  is  abstract  only, 
and  as  such  can  neither  be  bought  nor  sold.  In  working 
for  an  employer,  it  is  not  the  labor  which  the  worker 
sells,  but  the  thing  in  which  the  labor  has  become 
concreted  by  its  application  to  the  land  or  to  some- 
thing grown  or  taken  from  the  land.  Bastiat  is  right 
in  saying  "  services  only  are  exchanged."  In  the 
abstract  this  is  true,  but  the  services  which  have  no 
tangible  or  visible  vehicle  fail  of  any  material  appre- 
ciation. And,  however  nearly  abstract  any  service 
may  be,  place  and  opportunity,  and  the  presence  of 
a  party  needing  and  willing  to  pay  for  such  service, 
are  necessary  factors  in  the  exchange. 

Now,  private  property  in  land,  not  required  by  the 
owner  for  his  use  excludes  labor  from  place  and 
opportunity.  There  is  no  aim  or  logic  for  its  exist- 
ence, indeed,  but  to  effect  this  very  purpose.  Its  com- 
mercial value  depends  ivholly  on  its  poiver  to  prevent 
ivorlc.  It  could  not  otherwise  create  a  forced  com- 
petition between  laborers.  Certainly  sup])ly  and 
demand  can  have  no  legitimate  operation  between 
two  parties,  one  of  which  has  full  dominion  over  the 
land  and  the  ojiportunity  whicli  both  must  improve. 
The  one  lias  his  labor  in  such  relation  to  external 
nature  as  that  it  can  readily  be  wrapped  up  in  every- 
thing desired ;  the  other  has  no  place  to  bestow  it. 


22  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

and  it  must  lie  sterile.  His  labor,  until  applied,  has  no 
purchasing  poiver.  It  is  as  impossible  for  these  two 
to  compete  as  to  exchange,  for  the  thing  to  be  acted 
upon  and  turned  into  a  commodity  is  in  the  hands  of 
the  owner  of  the  land  and  the  oiDportunit}^  not  of 
the  worker. 

But  suppose  the  landless  man  should  hire  or  buy 
land  of  a  third  party  and  pay  rent  or  interest  to  the 
amount  say  of  one-half  of  what  he  could  produce, 
how  then  could  he  compete  with  the  other,  who  has 
no  rent  or  interest  to  pay  ?  It  will  doubtless  be  an- 
swered that  this  rent  or  interest  is  what  the  owner 
of  the  land  or  money  would  obtain  if  he  did  no  Avork 
at  all,  but  merely  let  to  others,  and  that  consequently, 
as  to  the  work  he  actually  does,  he  stands  on  an 
equal  ground  with  the  other.  This  is,  logically, 
much  the  same  as  the  basis  of  Eicardo's  theory  of 
rent.  How  inadequate  it  is  to  the  solution  of  any 
problem  of  industrial  production  seems  not  to  have 
troubled  the  minds  of  any  of  the  economists. 

It  is  true  that  the  balance  over  that  which  the 
land-holder  might  have  obtained  as  rent  without 
labor  determines  the  amount  which,  commercially, 
his  labor  realizes  him  ;  but  the  utter  fallacy  of  this 
assumption  is  seen  the  moment  we  reflect  that  when 
the  laborer  can  get  no  emplojanent,  or  opportunity 
to  work  whatever,  and  starves,  the  man  who  has 
access  to  the  soil  can  live  in  comfort,  although  he 
gets  no  more  with  his  persistent  labor  than  if  he  had 
rented  his  land  and  taken  the  rent  it  yielded.  Ac- 
cording to  this  theory,  reduced  to  a  naked  absurdity 
in  this  instance,  he  would  have  obtained  nothing  for 
his  work ;  it  would  have  been  unproductive.     Such 


INTRODUCTORY.  23 

induction  from  such  premises,  it  seems  to  me,  can 
have  little  interest  except  for  those  who  are  seeking 
justification  for  existing  inequalities.  Why  the  one 
should  be  protected  by  law  in  the  ownership  of 
thousands  of  acres,  while  the  other  is  denied  access 
to  any,  has  no  answer,  economically,  but  that  it  is 
the  law  of  trade  !  The  inability  of  political  economy 
to  grasp  the  problem  of  social  industry  and  division 
of  products  now  fully  appears. 

It  is  assumed  then  that  existing  conditions  and  in- 
equalities obtain  from  the  operation  of  the  laws  of 
trade.  Nothing  could  be  further  from  the  fact. 
They  are  the  results  of  barbaric  custom,  of  class 
domination  and  legislation,  and  are  upheld  by  no 
natural  law  of  trade  or  natural  law  of  any  kind  yet 
discovered  ;  and  the  wrongs  of  which  the  landless 
laborer  so  justly  complains  are  wrongs  inflicted 
and  sustained  by  statutes  regarding  the  tenure  of 
land  which  have  no  basis  in  reason,  and  will  be  found 
to  be  as  destitute  of  any  foundation  in  the  science  of 
law  as  they  are  of  any  justification  in  the  science  of 
morals.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  Ricardo  bases  his 
theory  of  rent,  and  Malthus  his  theory  of  over-popu- 
lation, upon  the  same  general  ground,  and  under  the 
shadow  of  a  land  monopoly,  which  keeps  one-half  of 
the  soil  of  the  British  Isles  uncultivated,  assumes 
that  the  whole  movement  of  society,  trade,  and  pop- 
ulation, in  condition  as  in  numbers,  is  under  the 
reign  of  natural  law.  Now,  science  can  take  no  cog- 
nizance of  statute  law  unless  it  be  by  comparing  it 
with,  and  condemning  it  where  it  differs  from,  natural 
law.    Yet  our  pseudo-economists  treat  all  phenomena. 


24  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

under  whatever  arbitrary  enactment  or  despotic  ad- 
ministration, as  of  the  same  scientific  value. 

It  has,  therefore,  been  my  aim  to  trace  historically 
the  processes  by  which  these  inequalities  have  arisen, 
been  perpetuated,  and  are  at  present  sustained  and 
made  to  appear  rational.  Science  makes  no  claim  to 
dominate  and  govern  society,  but  it  is  under  obliga- 
tion to  define  and  classify  phenomena  of  all  kinds. 
It  may  not  prescribe  laws  for  the  possession  of  the 
land,  hut  it  is  hound  to  show  ivhat  the  natural  relation  is 
hetiveen  man  and  the  soil,  the  prime  elements  in  social 
industry  and  social  progress. 

In  the  development  of  industrial  production,  which 
is  older  than  any  written  history,  there  have  been 
three  great  epochs,  interlapping  each  other  in  time, 
place,  and  circumstance,  but  still  sufiiciently  distinct 
from  each  other  to  admit  of  general  analysis  and 
classification.  Not  to  speak  of  the  cruder  form  of 
production  in  which  the  individual  or  primitive 
family  engaged,  or  was  directly  interested,  we  begin 
with  the  communistic  form,  when  the  family  extended 
to  the  tribe.  This  is  undoubtedly  the  earliest  form 
which  has  any  social  or  liistoric  significance.  In  its 
proper  place  we  shall  see  that  this  was  the  funda- 
mental form  by  which  occupancy  of  the  land  was 
regulated  and  determined.  Under  such  form  of 
necessity  the  production  must  have  been  communal, 
and  was  shared,  more  or  less  equitably,  according  to 
the  degree  of  progress  the  tribe  had  made  in  intelli- 
gence and  social  advancement.  Such  progress,  how- 
ever, was  subject  to  great  diversity  of  checks,  and  in 
many  cases  violently  turned  backward  by  tribal  wars 
and  conquests  of  warlike  chieftains.     And  where  the 


INTRODUCTORY.  25 

longest  peaceful  periods  were  enjoyed,  tliere  was  the 
liability  of  an  arrest  of  the  natural  development  of 
social  law  through  the  attachment  to  custom  and 
tradition  which  shows  itself  so  often  in  primitive 
communities  and  among  subject  races.  As  the 
boundaries  of  tribes  extended  they  came  in  contact 
with  other  tribes,  upon  whom  they  made  war  or  who 
made  war  upon  them.  Mutual  destruction  and  the 
possession  of  the  domain  and  goods  was  doubtless 
the  purpose  of  these  conflicts.  The  more  warlike 
destroyed  the  weaker  or  less  warlike,  and  appropri' 
ated  their  wealth,  as  formerly  our  farmers  destroyed 
the  bees  to  obtain  their  accumulated  honey ;  but, 
like  them,  the  Avarlike  tribes  soon  learned  a  better 
way.  We  have  seen,  now,  what  we  may  class  as  the 
primitive  form,  both  of  "production  and  division  hy 
usurpation."  Under  this  most  discouraging  state  of 
affairs,  however,  production  still  went  on,  evincing 
the  aptitude  of  mankind  even  in  a  savage  or  semi- 
savage  state,  for  productive  industry,  notwithstanding 
the  word  of  our  teachers  of  economics  and  apologists 
for  existing  usurpations ;  that  unless  the  ca2:)italist 
and  landlord  be  assured  of  the  lion's  share  in  distri- 
bution they  would  not  co-operate,  and  industry  must 
cease. 

This  form  was  superseded  by  another  form,  in 
which  the  lives  of  the  conquered  were  saved,  upon 
the  condition  that  they  would  become  the  bond- 
slaves of  the  victors — they,  and  tlieir  clildren,  and 
their  children's  children.  This  form  may  be  termed 
chri/frlism.  Under  it  production  and  division  were 
quite  sim})listic  probhjms.  Its  effect  u])on  tlie  in- 
crease of  wealth  was,  no  doubt,  considerable  in  com- 


26  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

parison  with  the  barbarity  which  it  superseded,  and 
Avhich  killed  the  worker  to  obtain  possession  of  his 
product.  It  was  in  some  respects  more  considerate 
to  the  vanquished,  and  much  more  convenient  for 
the  predatory  class ;  but  it  was  less  favorable  to  pro- 
duction than  mif^ht  have  been  expected,  for  the 
worker  before  had  the  normal  incentive  to  industry, 
the  prospective  possession  of  its  fruit,  and  till  the 
last  the  hope  that  he  might  escape  the  threatened 
doom.  But  as  a  productive  worker,  the  slave  soon 
sank  to  the  lowest  level  known  to  industrial  activity 
— so  low  that  the  lash  became  the  resort  to  stimulate 
his  flagging  purpose.  To  this  enslavement  and  usur- 
pation there  was  this  justification,  and  this  only. 
The  victor  could  plead  that  he  had  saved  the  life  of 
the  vanquished,  which  was  forfeited  by  the  laws  of 
barbaric  war,  and  in  consideration  of  which  the 
victim  gave  his  long-life  service  and  also  that  of  his 
posterity. 

This  vestige  of  primitive  "  contract "  appears  as 
late  even  as  the  forming  of  our  own  Constitution, 
which  contains  the  phrase  "  persons  held  to  service," 
and  under  which  slavery  was  perpetuated  in  our 
republic  for  nearly  a  century,  and  would  doubtless 
have  been  in  existence  to-day  but  for  the  rebellion 
of  the  slave-power  itself  against  the  government 
which  had  so  long  shielded  the  system  from  the 
progress  of  modern  thought  and  the  logic  of  events. 
This  is  a  circumstance  which  we  should  not  fail  to 
emphasize  in  our  estimation  of  the  forces  which 
must  inevitably  disrupt  or  destroy  our  present  sys- 
tem of  capitalism  unless  the  existing  usurpations  are 


INTRODUCTORY.  27 

allowed  to  control  wliolly  our  government  and  laws, 
or  are  in  time  wisely  and  peacefully  abolished. 

To  the  slave  system  of  production  succeeded  the 
feudal  system.  Successful  chieftains  had  increased 
the  extent  of  their  sway  by  conquest,  and  kingdoms 
and  empires  were  formed.  The  influence  of  the 
primitive  community  became  weakened  and  modi- 
fied. Slavery  became  unwieldy,  and  the  operation 
of  Roman  civilization  became  checked  and  hastened 
to  dissolution,  through  its  profligate  prostitution  of 
the  civil  law  and  of  public  trusts,  to  promote  private 
advancement  and  personal  dominion.  With  the  ab- 
sorption of  the  lands  by  a  class,  it  became  an  empire 
of  slaves,  citizenship  retained  no  meaning,  and  only 
a  debauched  aristocracy  remained. 

Under  feudalism  the  slave  became  a  serf,  and  was 
bound  to  the  land  and  the  landlord  to  him.  He  was 
recognized  as  entitled  to  protection  under  the  law  of 
the  realm,  and  under  the  doctrine  of  the  divine  right 
of  kings  vassalage  and  villienage  became  the  condi- 
tion of  nearly  all  those  who  followed  industrial  pur- 
suits. This  was  the  feudal  system  of  production. 
Under  this  form  certain  kinds  of  industr}-  flourished ; 
but  other  than  a  rude  agriculture,  they  were  those 
relating  to  war,  or  to  the  requirements  of  the  church. 
This  system  gradually  and  silently  disappeared  with 
not  so  much  as  a  notice  from  any  historian  till  the 
time  of  Macaulay.  To  it  succeeded  the  "  competitive 
system,"  as  we  may  call  it  for  the  want  of  a  better 
name.  Fourier  denominates  it  industrial  or  com- 
mercial feudalism.  Karl  Marx  calls  it  "  ca])italistic 
production."  It  is  uniinp(5rtaiit  what  we  call  it,  if 
we  analyze  the  thing  itself  and  properly  classify  it. 


28  SOCIAL   WEALTH. 

As  the  feudal  system  retained  many  of  the  elements 
of  slavery,  modified  by  the  traditions,  customs,  and 
practices  of  the  primitive  communities,  so  capitalism 
retained  the  essential  usurpations  of  feudalism, 
though  professing  to  guard  personal  freedom,  and  to 
observe  equity  between  the  owner  and  the  occupier 
of  the  land,  the  employer  and  the  employed.  Like 
slavery  and  serfdom,  however,  it  relies  wholly  upon 
the  "law  of  contract."  This  law  we  shall  be  under 
the  necessity  of  analyzing,  after  we  have  inquired 
into  the  principle  of  law  which  underlies  the  appor- 
tionment, occupancy,  and  use  of  the  land.  It  is  well 
here  to  call  atention  merely  to  the  significant  fact, 
that  although  slaves  were  held  under  contract  they 
were  incapacitated  from  making  any  contract  what- 
ever, not  even  marriage ;  and  that  the  serf  was  vir- 
tually in  the  same  condition,  being  allowed  to  marry 
only  within  certain  limitations  and  with  the  sanction 
of  his  feudal  lord.  We  shall  see,  by  and  by,  that  a 
slave,  serf,  nor  even  the  landless  wage-worker,  has 
any  status  which  can  enable  him  to  make  any  con- 
tract which  will  be  binding  with  respect  to  the 
division  of  the  products  of  an  industry  in  which  he 
is  mutually  engaged  with  others. 

Though  we  have  sj)oken  of  the  several  systems  of 
industrial  production,  as  they  were  dominated  by  the 
simple  law  of  the  strongest — as  under  slavery,  as 
under  hereditary  rule  in  feudalism,  and  in  our  pres- 
ent system  of  capitalism,  or  rule  of  the  market — there 
is  and  has  been,  in  reality,  but  one  principle  about 
production  under  all  of  them — that  of  the  employ- 
ment of  human  labor  upon  the  soil,  and  the  sponta- 
neous offerings  of  nature.     And  in  the  creation  of  all 


INTRODUCTORY.  29 

social  wealth  this  has  been  co-operative.  It  is  the 
method  of  division  which  has  varied,  but  varied  less 
than  appears  upon  an  ordinary  presentation  of  the 
subject.  For  the  proportion  which  goes  to  the 
worker  has  a  remarkable  similarity  under  these,  to 
appearance,  widely  different  systems.  Nearly  the 
same,  and  only  the  same,  proportion  goes  to  the 
wage-worker  now  as  went  formerly  to  the  serf  or  to 
the  slave.  We  have  no  reliable  data,  it  is  true,  as 
to  what  portion  of  the  slave's  production  was  usually 
required  for  his  support,  but  we  have  the  authority 
of  Hallam  that  the  laborer  of  his  generation  was 
"  much  inferior  in  ability  to  support  a  family  to  his 
ancestors  three  or  four  centuries  ago"  (Middle  Ages, 
p.  500).  And  he  quotes  Sir  John  Cullum  as  saying : 
"  In  the  fourteenth  century  a  harvest  man  had  4d.  a 
day,  which  enabled  him  in  a  week  to  buy  a  comb  of 
wheat;  but  to  buy  a  comb  of  wheat  now  (1784)  a  man 
must  work  ten  or  twelve  days."  He  further  says: 
"So  under  Henry  VII.,  if  meat  was  a  farthing  and 
a  half,  which  I  suppose  was  about  the  truth,  a  laborer 
earning  3d.  a  day,  or  18d.  in  the  week,  could  buy  a 
bushel  of  wheat  at  9d.,  and  24  lbs.  of  meat  for  his 
family.  A  laborer  at  present  (1817)  earning  12s.  a 
week  can  only  buy  a  half  bushel  of  wheat  at  10s.,  and 
12  lbs.  of  meat  at  7d."  He  points  out  that  in  conse- 
quence of  the  improvements  in  manufactures  certain 
commodities  had  become  proportionally  cheaper,  but 
on  the  wliole  concludes  as  above  quoted. 

But  while  it  is  true  that  great  progress  lias  been 
made  in  im])r(n'(;ments  in  machinery,  in  tlie  processes 
of  various  industries,  and  the  production  of  wealtli, 
it  is  also  too  true  tliat   ])()verty  has  extended   its 


30  SOCIAL   WEALTH. 

borders  in  equal,  if  not  increased,  ratio.  It  may  be 
said  tliat  "the  craftsman  now  lodges  and  fares  better 
than  the  feudal  lord  ten  centuries  ago,  or  the  bar- 
baric king  of  an  earlier  period;"  yet  still  the  propor- 
tion he  shares  of  what  his  labor  creates  is  less  than 
that  which  the  Saxon  Gurth  enjoyed ;  and  what  is 
worse,  is  denied  at  times  the  opportunity  to  work  at 
all.  The  wealth  which  the  lord  of  land  or  of  capital 
now  acquires  from  the  productions  of  labor  is  pro- 
portionately greater  than  that  which  success  ever 
gave  to  the  military  chieftain,  to  the  slave-holder,  or 
to  the  feudal  baron.  That  political  economy,  as  de- 
fined by  the  latest  school,  applies  equally  well  to 
each  of  these  systems  of  production  and  division 
should  show  us  how  inadequate  it  is  to  even  treat, 
much  less  to  solve,  the  industrial  problems  which 
are  now  pressing  for  elucidation. 

One  of  the  first,  if  not  the  very  first,  of  economists 
who  were  prominent  in  the  public  life  of  our  nation 
fifty  years  ago — John  C.  Calhoun — was  a  slave-holder 
who  religiously  believed  slavery  to  be  not  only  right, 
but  the  only  safe  relation  between  "  capital  and  la- 
bor." He  foresaw,  and  correctly  foretold,  that  the 
abolition  of  slavery  would  lead  directly  to  the  conflict 
between  labor  and  capital  which  now  confronts  us.* 
We  must  look  to  a  broader  sphere  of  thought  than 

*  In  1835.  under  liis  teachings,  the  Charleston  Baptist  Association,  in 
Its  report,  said  it  "did  not  consider  that  the  iioly  scriptures  had  made 
the  fact  of  slavery  a  question  of  morals  at  all.  The  question  is  one 
purely  of  political  economy,  viz. :  Whether  the  operatives  of  a  country 
shall  be  bought  and  sold,  and  themselves  become  property  as  in  South 
Carolina,  or  whether  they  shall  be  hirehngs,  and  their  labor  only  become 
property." 


INTRODUCTORY.  31 

that  of  political  economy,  wliicli  is  constantly  nar- 
rowing, before  we  shall  find  any  satisfactory  reason 
or  explanation  for  the  gigantic  accumulations  of 
wealth  in  the  few  hands,  and  the  growing  pauperism 
among  the  people  whereyer  the  tenure  of  land  and 
the  law  of  the  market  coincide  to  multiply  accumu- 
lations of  wealth  by  a  "  duplicate  geometrical  ratio," 
while  labor  can  onl}-  increase  production  by  "  equal 
differences." 

That  the  tendencies  which  conspire  to  create  the 
inequalities  of  condition,  and  utter  subjection  of 
labor  to  the  power  of  capital,  are  traceable  ultimately 
to  priyate  property  in  land,  as  at  present  interpreted 
by  law  and  custom,  there  can  now  remain  no  rational 
doubt.  Mr.  George,  in  his  "Progress  and  Poyerty," 
has  shown  it  in  his  masterful  way,  though  he  does 
not  see  that  it  is  now  a  tool  of  capitalism  merely. 
His  work  has  become  so  widel}'  known,  and  so  gen- 
erally read,  that  I  may  be  saved  the  necessity  of 
making  any  argument  upon  that  head.  Mr.  Wallace 
and  Mr.  Clark  have  also  directed  attention  to  the 
same  question,  in  a  manner  to  leave  the  matter  in  no 
doubt,  and  I  will  not  take  the  labor  of  proving  at 
length  what  is  so  generally  acknowledged  to  be  true. 

To  the  perhaps  less  obvious  truths  respecting  the 
modes  of  obtaining  wealth  without  service,  the  nature 
of  the  productive  factors,  and  the  ratios  involved  in 
procuring  and  apportioning  social  wealth,  we  need 
to  apply  the  most  careful  attention  and  bring  the 
utmost  candor.  For  upon  tliese  qualities  of  mind 
everything  in  the  investigation  of  social  questions 
depends. 


CHAPTEE  IT. 

ECONOMIC    SCHOOLS  :    A   BRIEF   REVIEW   OF   THEIR   ORIGIN 

AND    GROWTH. 

As  A  science,  or  branch  of  science,  political  econ- 
omy is  little  more  than  a  century  old.  The  term  is 
said  to  have  been  first  used  by  Quesnay,  a  French 
philosopher,  who  published  a  volume  in  1758,  no 
copies  of  which,  however,  are  now  extant.  Previous 
to  that  a  doctrine  known  as  "  the  balance  of  trade " 
had  obtained  among  the  savants  of  Europe,  and  ex- 
erted a  wide  and  powerful  influence  over  the  govern- 
ment and  fortunes  of  nations  for  nearly  two  hundred 
years.  Spain  and  Poland  especially  favored  it,  and 
by  cruel  laws  and  frequent  wars  sought  to  retain 
within  their  dominions  the  money  of  commerce — the 
precious  metals.  More  than  one -fourth  of  the  whole 
time  is  said  to  have  been  spent  in  destructive  wars, 
which  are  noticed  in  superficial  history  as  dynastic 
and  religious  wars,  but  which  were  in  the  supposed 
interest  of  that  control  of  commerce  which  would 
bring  the  money  from  many  countries  into  one. 

The  doctrine  was  briefly  that  "  such  commerce  only 
was  valuable  which  brought  money  into  a  country," 
and  that  in  exchange  one  side  necessarily  gained 
and  the  other  lost.  During  its  prevalence,  hoAvever, 
Spain  sunk  from  the  first  to  a  fourth  or  fifth  rank 
among  the  nations,  and  Poland  lost  its  national  ex- 
istence. ^' 


ECONOMIC    SCHOOLS.  33 

Quesnay  was  the  first  writer  who  combated  this 
doctrine  by  anything  like  a  systematic  method.  He 
laid  it  down  as  a  maxim  that  "  nations  are  interested 
in  the  prosperity,  and  not  in  the  destruction,  of  their 
neighbors."  A  school  of  philosophers  was  immedi- 
ately formed  who  adopted  in  the  main  his  teachings, 
and,  according  to  Macleod,  "  reflecting  upon  the  in- 
tolerable misery  they  saw  around  them,  struck  out 
with  the  idea  that  there  must  be  some  great  natural 
science,  some  j^rincij^les  of  eternal  truth  founded  in 
nature  itself,  with  regard  to  the  social  relations  of 
mankind,  the  yiolations  of  which  were  the  causes  of 
that  hideous  misery  they  saw  in  their  native  land. 
The  name  they  gaye  this  science  was  Natural  Eights, 
and  their  object  was  to  discover  and  lay  down  an 
abstract  science  of  the  rights  of  men  in  all  their 
social  relations  .  .  .  toward  goyernment,  toward 
each  other,  and  toward  j)roperty  "  (Elements  of  Eco- 
nomics, p.  54). 

To  wliat  extent  the  promulgation  of  their  views 
operated  to  change  the  attitude  of  the  French  people 
toward  their  government  would  prove  an  interesting 
inquiry,  but  it  is  not  proposed  here.  Froedom  was 
their  ruling  maxim — freedom  of  person,  of  opinion, 
and  of  trade  between  individuals  and  nations.  It 
seems  that  Turgot,  who  was  for  a  time  the  controller- 
general  of  Louis  XVL,  and  an  eminent  disciple  of 
his  school,  would  have  been  able  to  turn  back  the 
threatened  revolution,  if  his  king  had  enabled  him 
to  carry  out  lii.s  ])lans  for  refoi-miiig  the  civil  and 
financial  systems  ho  found  onthroMcd  in  France  more 
securely  than  monarchy  itself.  He  was  allowed  to 
hold  his  position  only  about  a  year  and  a  half,  when 


34:  SOCIAL   WEALTH. 

he  was  abandoned  by  the  king,  who  at  the  same  time 
expressed  the  opinion  that  the  only  persons  who 
sought  the  welfare  of  the  people  Avere  Turgot  and 
himself. 

A  writer  of  note  says.,  in  regard  to  this :  "  If  the 
nobility  and  privileged  classes  had  possessed  enough 
of  foresight  and  patriotism  to  submit  to  his  plans  of 
reforming  France,  she  might  have  been  spared  the 
horrors  and  excesses  of  the  revolution.  But  his  pro- 
jects for  the  public  good  were  defeated  by  the  con- 
federacy formed  against  him  by  the  nobles,  the 
courtiers,  farmers  of  the  piiblic  revenue,  and  the 
financiers." 

This  first  school  of  economists  recognized  that 
man's  physical  and  social  wants  lead  him  to  live  in 
society  of  equals  in  a  state  of  "  peace  and  good  will," 
and  to  recognize  that  others,  with  the  same  wants  as 
himself,  cannot  have  less  rights  than  himself,  and 
that  he  is  therefore  bound  to  respect  those  rights,  so 
that  he  may  have  the  same  observed  toward  himself. 
They  held  that  wealth  was  derived  wholly  from  the 
produce  of  the  land,  and  consisted  of  that  which  was 
in  excess  of  the  cost  of  production,  or  that  which 
was  consumed  by  the  labor  producing  it.  Labor 
employed  in  obtaining  products  from  the  land  they 
considered  the  only  productive  labor,  and  held  that  the 
wages  of  all  others  were  paid  from  this  source.  In 
exchange  they  held  that  neither  side  gains,  and  they 
excluded  labor  and  credit  from  their  definition  of 
capital,  although  at  the  time  chattel  slavery  was 
common  among  the  nations.  This  school  was  estab- 
lished upon  a  half  truth.  They  recognized  the  land 
as  the  basic  element  in  economics,  but  failed  to  see 


ECONOillC    SCHOOLS.  35 

that  only  Avlien  joined  to  labor  it  was  a  factor  in  the 
production  of  wealth. 

.  But  there  soon  sprang  up  a  second  school  of  econ- 
omists, holding,  like  the  first  school,  to  freedom  of 
commerce,  but  denying  that  mechanic  arts  and  trade 
do  not  contribute  to  enrich  a  nation.  They  con- 
tended, also,  that  there  is  a  gain  to  both  sides  in 
commerce.  Adam  Smith,  the  leader  of  this  second 
school,  made  labor  the  basis  of  all  wealth,  as  the  first 
school  had  made  the  land,  and  therefore  comple- 
mented their  main  theory.  This  school  took  up  the 
theory  of  value,  and  developed  the  general  idea  of 
supply  and  demand  in  its  operation  to  promote  or 
regulate  the  fiuctuations  and  adjustments  of  prices. 
Adopting  also  their  idea  of  wealth  as  arising  from 
the  mutual  wants  of  people,  and  as  consisting  of  the 
exchangeability  of  things.  Smith  laid  it  down  as  an 
axiom,  that  "the  real  price  of  everything- — what 
every  thing  really  costs  to  the  man  who  wants  to 
acquire  it — is  the  toil  and  trouble  of  acquiring  it. 
What  everything  is  really  worth  to  the  man  who  has 
acquired  it,  and  who  wants  to  dispose  of  it,  or  ex- 
change it  for  something  else,  is  the  toil  and  trouble 
wliich  it  can  save  to  himself,  and  which  it  can  impose 
upon  other  people.  Wliat  is  bought  with  money  or 
goods  is  i)urchased  by  labor  as  much  as  wliat  we 
acquire  by  the  toil  of  our  own  body,  .  .  .  and  its 
value  to  those  who  possess  it,  and  want  to  exchange 
it  for  some  new  ])roduction,  is  precisely  equal  to  the 
quantity  of  labor  which  it  can  enable  them  to  pur- 
chase or  command." 

But  neither  school  clearly  graspful  the  whole  truth 
— that  it  is  the  union  of  thcuc  two  ofjcnls  or  fador.i 


36  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

ivhicJi  produces  all  material  goods.  The  system,  of 
wliicli  Smith  gave  the  substantial  rudiments,  was 
widely  departed  from,  in  certain  particulars,  by 
Kicardo,  Malthus,  Mill,  and  others,  without,  how- 
ever, in  any  way  inquiring  into  the  natural  relation 
between  the  land  and  the  occupier,  or  into  any 
equitable  system  of  division  of  the  products  of  in- 
dustry. If  they  did  not  assume  that  wages,  rent, 
and  profits  were  a  just  and  equitable  system  of 
division,  they  ignored  their  obvious  inequality  and 
monstrous  injustice ;  and  if  they  did  not  assume  that 
the  unrestricted  dominion  of  the  land  as  established 
by  civil  law,  was  true  and  in  accordance  with  the 
natural  relation,  they  virtually  treated  it  as  such, 
and  were  wholly  silent  as  to  any  other  theory  of 
land  ownership  than  the  caj^italistic  or  feudalistic. 

From  this  remark  must  be  excepted,  however,  the 
later  Mill,  Prof.  J.  E.  Cairnes,  and  some  later  writers 
of  less  note.  And  the  truth  is  that  the  strict  trade 
economists  found  no  practical  method  of  evading 
longer  this  manifest  tendency  to  the  investigation  of 
jnore  fundamental  questions ;  but  by  narrowing  the 
scope  of  the  science  to  the  single  matter  of  exchange. 
Professor  Perry,  our  own  countryman,  Macleod  of 
England,  and  M.  Eouher  of  France,  are  representa- 
tive men  of  this  later  school  of  economists.  Macleod 
says  :  "  This  view  has  now  become  general  among 
the  most  recent  and  advanced  economists  in  Europe, 
who  are  too  numerous  to  name — that  pure  economics 
is  nothing  but  the  science  of  exchanges." 

It  is  useless  now  to  object  to  this  limitation  of  a 
science  so  broad  in  its  inception,  and  which  embraced 
isonomics,  or  law  of  equal  privilege,  as  well  as  econ- 


ECONOMIC   SCHOOLS.  37 

omy.  But  what  is  open  to  objection  and  severe 
reprehension  is  that  when  so  limited  it  should  treat 
all  phenomena  in  regard  to  properbj  and  trade  as  natural, 
however  determined  by  arbitrary  domination,  or  by 
the  operation  of  barbaric  custom  and  unequal  laws. 

Because,  if  we  follow  the  teachings  of  this  later  or 
third  school,  in  accepting  the  theory  that  supply  and 
demand  is  the  cause  of  value  (although  reallj-  but  an 
incident  in  the  fluctuations  of  the  market  price)  there 
arises  all  the  greater  necessity  for  dealing  in  an  inde- 
pendent way  with  those  things  which  the  reformed 
science  excludes,  viz.  :  The  work  and  the  worker,  and 
their  relation  to  each  other  and  to  the  earth,  as  well 
as  to  the  system  of  division  of  the  products  of  social 
industry.  For  these  exist  back  of  all  trade,  and  of 
the  "  varying  relation  of  economic  quantities "  to 
each  other,  which,  according  to  this  school,  "  defines 
and  limits  the  inquiry."  Surely  if  so  narrow  a 
specialty  requires  the  appropriation  of  an  entire 
science  for  its  elucidation,  the  relation  of  the  man  to 
the  elements  upon  which  his  life  and  labor  depend, 
as  well  as  the  undisturbed  eiijo^nnent  of  the  products 
of  his  activity,  demands  an  inquiry  and  the  forming 
of  a  science  of  social  industry  ap]ilicable  in  every 
social  arrangement.  And  certainly  it  will  not  be 
permitted  to  a  science  of  such  special  scope  as  eco- 
nomics has  thus  become,  to  determine  and  conclude 
any  controversy  beyond  tlie  sphere  of  trade,  espe- 
cially not  to  decide  tlie  claims  oi  labor  adversely  by 
simply  ignoring  them,  or  by  assuming  them  already 
determined  by  tlie  crude  institutions  derived  from  a 
wliolly  unscientific  and  barbarf)us  age.  It  is  also 
plain,   from   what    lias   been   (piotcd    fi-oni   a  "  I'nrc* 


383017 


38  SOCIAL    WEALTH. 

Economist,"  that  tLe  view  of  tlie  originators  of  the 
science,  the  first  school,  was  far  more  broad  and 
humanitary,  and  aimed  at  nothiiig  less  than  "  to  dis- 
cover and  lay  down  an  abstract  science  of  the  natural 
rights  of  men  in  all  their  social  relations."  Now, 
since  "  Economics "  has  abandoned  that  field  alto- 
gether, and  confined  itself  to  the  treatment  of  a  single 
branch  of  the  subject,  the  question  of  value,  by  what 
logic  can  it  assume  to  prejudge  those  broader  and 
weightier  questions  which  itself  has  positively  ex- 
cluded ? 

I  should  notice  in  this  connection  the  existence  of 
a  partially  retrograde  school  of  economists,  which  is 
mainly  represented  by  the  works  of  Henry  C.  Carey. 
It  was  in  some  respects  a  protest  against  the  studied 
neglect,  by  the  writers  of  the  second  school,  of  the 
industrial  question  and  of  the  rights  of  labor.  To  a 
certain  extent  he  rehabilitated  the  old  doctrine  of 
the  "  Balance  of  Trade,"  and  with  good  reason  in 
view  of  the  abandonment  of  the  whole  industrial  side 
of  the  equation  by  the  other  schools.  Whether  both 
parties  to  an  exchange  gained,  or  whether  neither 
gained,  or  whether  the  one  gained  and  the  other  lost, 
between  nations  or  individuals,  would  depend  mainly 
upon  the  equity  of  the  exchange,  rather  than  upon 
any  relation  of  supply  and  demand.  Not  the  "  bal- 
ance of  trade,"  but  the  "balance  of  profits,"  would 
determine  the  ratio  in  which  the  one  would  succeed  to 
afiiuence  and  the  other  be  reduced  to  poverty,  and  to 
which  abundance  of  supply  and  intensity  of  demand 
would  give  no  solution  or  even  intimation.  Protec- 
tion against  such  result  was  not  only  a  just  aim,  but 
an  imperious  necessity  to  save  industry  from  a  con- 


ECONOMIC   SCHOOLS.  39 

stant  despoliation  of  which  neither  school  so  much 
as  acknowledges  the  existence. 

We  can  only  deplore  the  wholly  impotent  remedies 
offered  by  Carey  for  the  disease  he  so  clearly  under- 
stood. His  elementary  principles  are  greatly  clouded 
by  the  delusive  mirage  which  befogged  his  mind  in 
regard  to  foreign  trade,  and  the  workings  of  a  tariff 
upon  the  productions  of  other  lands.  The  necessity 
of  a  more  thorough  and  comprehensive  system  of 
investigation  than  any  of  these  schools  affords  must 
be  now  apparent  to  the  most  careless  reader. 


CHAPTER  III. 

EISE  AND   GKOWTH    OF  CAPITALISM. 

The  progress  of  tlie  human  race  is  effected  by  the 
operation  of  two  forces  which  correspond  in  most  re- 
spects to  what  in  physics  are  often  called,  for  want  of 
better  terms,  the  centripetal  and  centrifugal  forces. 
These  are  the  forces  of  convergence  and  divergence, 
the  one  tending  to  concentration  of  powers  and  prop- 
erties, and  the  other  to  their  separateness  or  the  in- 
dependence of  parts.  Socialism  and  Individualism  are 
to  appearance  conflicting,  though  in  reality  comple- 
mental,  in  their  relations  to  the  sooietar}^  movement. 
Capitalism  has  its  rise  in  the  early  and  erratic 
stage  of  these  movements  and  grows  out  of  the  irregu- 
lar action  of  these  forces.  By  itself,  Individualism 
seeks  the  private  good  to  the  neglect  of  society,  and, 
uncomplemented,  to  its  ultimate  disruption.  By 
,  itself,  Socialism  seeks  the  collective  good,  to  the  neg- 
lect and  ultimate  subjection  of  the  individual.  Be- 
tween these  two  forces,  and  while  their  play  is  inhar- 
monic, the  capitalistic  tendency  becomes  developed, 
employing  the  license  of  the  individual  to  sequester 
the  social  wealth,  and  convert  the  social  forces  into 
means  for  the  subjection  of  other  individual  workers. 
Under  the  usages  and  regnilations  of  aggressive  war 
it  seizes  the  laborer  and  reduces  him  to  the  condition 
of  a  slave.     By  more  gradual  means  it  assumes  do- 

40 


RISE  AND   GKOWTH   OF   CAPITALISM.  41 

minion  of  the  land  by  steady  approaches.  Anon  it 
courts  the  individual  and  leans  toward  personal 
freedom,  and,  as  it  acquires  exclusive  control  of  the 
counter-element,  the  land,  relaxes  its  hold  of  the  per- 
son of  the  laborer.  It  now  gathers  to  itself  the  social 
and  civil  powers,  and,  to  make  its  dominion  of  the 
land  absolute,  lauds  at  the  same  time  the  personal 
freedom  of  the  individual  and  the  divine  origin  of 
the  state.  Thus  unlimited  freedom  to  extend  and 
absorb  earthly  possessions,  inviolability  of  contract, 
however  formed  or  assumed,  became  the  great  w^atch- 
words  and  signs  by  which  it  conquered. 

And  thus  it  has  played  the  social  force  against  the 
individual,  and  again  the  individual  right  against  the 
social  claim,  whenever  the  state  has  attempted  to 
limit  or  regulate  its  rapacity.  It  now  approaches 
the  seat  of  civil  power,  in  order  to  enlarge  its  privi- 
lege, and  converts  public  trusts  to  private  ends.  In 
modern  states  it  purchases  the  courts  and  legislatures, 
and  where  it  cannot  directly  accomplish  this  purpose, 
pleads  for  protection  and  exemption  from  the  law  of 
competition  which  it  prescribes  for  the  worker. 
While  obtaining  high  tariffs  and  princely  subsidies, 
it  takes  occasion  to  warn  the  government  tliat  noth- 
ing is  required  to  benefit  the  condition  of  laboi-,  but 
to  enable  capital  to  give  employment  ;  that  having 
freedom  to  choose  his  calling  and  power  to  liave  en- 
forced his  contracts,  the  laborer  should  i)e  satisfied. 
In  tlie  testimony  ])efore  tlie  Senat(n-ial  Committee  on 
Education   sim\  Labor,  noted   (•a])italists,*   in   giving 


*Tlio  tngtimnny  of  .Toliii  Tlnsioli  and  .Ta}'  Pionld,  aa  roforroil  to  aViovc, 
parliciilarly  cnipliasi/i-d  tlici  ii(;<'cs-ily  lliat  ^ruvcmmciil  slioiil'J  favor  and 


42  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

their  life  experience  intimated  tliat  all  workers  lia\e 
the  "  chance  "  to  become  millionaires,  and  perhaps 
this  would  be  true  if  subsidies  and  the  winnings  of 
gamblers  could  have  universal  application.  But  it  is 
for  private  advantage  and  plunder  of  the  public  that 
subsidies  are  sought  or  gambling  is  inaugurated. 

Caj^italism  continues  true  to  its  origin  and  name. 
It  seeks  to  bring  all  things  to  or  under  one  head  and 
to  monopolize  the  sources  of  production.  In  poli- 
tics it  is  monarchy,  not  such  as  the  effete  institutions 
now  siipport,  but  as  it  appears  in  an  Alexander  or  a 
Napoleon.  It  employs  all  the  military  powers  of  the 
state  and  all  civil  and  diplomatic  trickery  to  reduce 
all  men  and  all  nations  to  its  sway.  It  does  not 
tolerate  equality  or  the  existence  of  equals.  "  The 
universe  cannot  retain  two  suns."  No  sooner  have 
Octavius  and  Anthony  put  down  the  conspirators 
than  they  try  issues  with  each  other.  This  may  be 
said  to  be  the  sum  of  military  careers,  the  establish- 
ment of  unlimited  power  in  the  hands  of  one.  It  is 
the  same  with  capitalistic  careers. 

In  trade  the  instruments  and  maxims  only  are 
changed.  The  spirit  is  the  same,  and  the  purpose 
to   reduce   the  world  to  the  payment  of  tribute  is 


protect  capital,  but  tliat  labor,  under  our  equal  laws,  had  everything  it 
could  reasonably  ask.  The  latter-named  gentleman,  in  a  previous  ex 
amination  before  a  legislative  committee  of  the  state  of  New  York,  in 
1872,  speaking  of  his  action  politically,  had  said:  '"I  do  not  know  how 
much  I  paid  in  helping  friendly  men.  We  had  four  states  to  look 
after  and  we  had  to  suit  our  politics  to  circumstances.  In  a  Demo- 
cratic district  I  was  a  Democrat,  in  a  Republican  district  I  was  a  Re- 
publican, and  in  a  doubtful  district  I  was  doubtful ;  but  in  every  dis- 
trict, and  at  all  times,  I  have  always  been  an  Erie  man." 


EISE   AND   GEOWTH   OF   CAPITALISM.  43 

scarcely  changed  in  form.  Our  millionaires,  with 
less  personal  courage,  have  found  a  safer  method  of 
subjection  and  pursue  it  with  as  little  scruple  as  did 
the  ancient  chieftains. 

Trade,  as  we  have  it  in  bargain-making,  is  the  di- 
rect successor  of  violence  in  warfare.  To  illustrate 
this  I  cannot  do  better  than  quote  from  Henry  Sum- 
ner Maine  : 

"  In  order  to  understand  what  a  market  originally 
was  you  must  try  to  picture  to  yourselves  a  territory 
occupied  by  village  communities,  self-acting  and  as 
yet  autonomous,  each  cultivating  its  arable  land  in 
the  middle  of  its  waste,  and  each,  I  fear  I  must  add, 
at  perpetual  war  with  its  neiglibor.  But  at  several 
points,  probably  where  the  domains  of  two  or  three 
villages  converged,  there  appear  to  have  been  spaces 
of  what  we  should  call  neutral  ground.  These  were 
the  markets.  They  were  probably  the  only  places  at 
which  the  members  of  the  different  groups  met  for 
any  purpose  except  warfare,  and  the  persons  who 
first  came  to  them  were  doubtless,  at  first,  persons 
specially  empowered  to  exchange  the  produce  and 
manufactures  of  one  little  village  community  for 
those  of  another.  Sir  John  Lubbock,  in  his  recent 
volume  on  tlie  '  Origin  of  Civilization,'  has  some  in- 
teresting remarks  on  the  very  ancient  association  be- 
tween Markets  and  Neutrality  (p.  205) ;  nor  can  I 
help  oljserving  that  there  is  a  historical  connection 
of  the  utmost  importance  to  the  moderns  between 
the  two,  since  tlie  ju.s  f/rnf!um  of  the  Roman  pnetor, 
which  was  in  ]y.irt  originally  a  market  law,  is  the  un- 
doubtf'd  pai'ont  of  our  int(>niational  law.  But,  be- 
sides   tlie    notion    of    iimtrality,    another   idea    was 


44  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

associated  witli  markets.  This  was  the  idea  of  sharp 
practice  and  hard  bargaining.  Tlie  three  ideas  seem 
all  blended  in  the  attributes  of  the  god  Hermes,  or 
Mercury — at  once  the  god  of  boundaries,  the  prince 
of  messengers  oT  embassadors,  and  the  patron  of 
trade,  of  cheating,  and  of  thieves"  (Village  Com- 
munities, pp.  192,  193). 

From  the  fact  tliat  in  their  domestic  relations  the 
primitive  groups  give  feeble  play  to  the  principles  of 
trade,  he  says :  "  Competition,  that  prodigious  social 
force  of  which  the  action  is  measured  by  political 
economy,  is  of  relatively  modern  origin.  Just  as  the 
conceptions  of  human  brotherhood  and  (in  a  less  de- 
gree) of  human  equality  appear  to  have  passed  be- 
yond the  limits  of  the  primitive  communities  and  to 
have  spread  themselves  in  a  highly  diluted  form  over 
the  mass  of  mankind,  so,  on  the  other  hand,  compe- 
tition in  exchange  seems  to  be  the  universal  belliger- 
ency of  the  ancient  world  which  has  penetrated  into 
the  interior  of  the  ancient  groups  of  blood  relatives. 
It  is  the  regulated  private  war  of  ancient  society 
gradually  broken  up  into  indistinguishable  atoms. 
So  far  as  property  in  land  is  concerned,  unrestricted 
competition  in  purchase  and  exchange  has  afar  more 
limited  action  even  at  this  moment  than  an  English- 
man or  American  would  suppose.  The  view  of  land 
as  merchantable  property,  exchangeable  like  a  horse 
or  an  ox,  seems  to  be  not  only  modern,  but  even  now 
distinctively  Western"  (V.  C.,  227,  228). 

Where  the  older  forms  of  usurpation  exist  and 
the  ruder  despotism  prevails  there  is  less  necessity 
for  complete  caj^italistic  control  of  the  land,  but  with 
the  dying  out  of   those  forms,  and  as  they  yield  to 


KISE   AND   GKOWTH    OF    CAPITALISM.  45 

the  progress  of  modern  thought,  privilege,  with  the 
instinct  of  self-preservation  clutches  at  the  dominion 
of  the  land,  and  through  the  reduction  of  that  ele- 
ment to  the  status  of  a  commodity  and  the  competi- 
tive struggle  for  its  possession,  renews  its  waning 
strength  and  extends  its  endangered  power.  In  the 
United  States  this  principle  is  wholly  unrestricted 
and  its  dicta  are  universally  accepted  in  all  business 
circles.  In  England  an  effort  is  being  made  to  form 
into  creneral  law  the  rule  of  the  market  so  as  to  do 
away  with  the  obstacles  to  "free  trade  in  the  land." 
In  continental  Europe,  with  the  exception  of  France, 
it  has  not  yet  taken  on  distinctive  form,  and  is  less 
and  less  defined  as  we  approach  the  countries  gov- 
erned by  absolute  power  and  the  traditions  of  earlier 
times. 

To  reduce  land  to  the  state  of  a  commodity,  so  as 
to  profit  by  its  relation  to  production,  and  to  force  a 
competitive  struggle  for  its  use,  the  spirit  of  capital- 
ism has  contrived  to  win  victory  from  defeat.  And 
thus  the  market  lias  brought  the  occupancy  of  the 
land  under  its  rule,  and  developed  what  under  no 
other  rule  could  have  been  effected,  a  competitive 
rent,  forced  by  the  necessities  of  the  cultivator  to 
obtain  the  privilege  which  naturally  is  his. 

"  The  right  to  take  the  highest  obtainable  rent  for 
the  land  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact  and  as  a  matter  of 
morality,  a  right  derived  from  a  rule  of  the  market. 
Botli  the  explanation  and  the  justification  of  the  ex- 
ercise of  the  right  in  Enghiiid  and  Scotland  is  tliat 
in  these  countries  there  really  is  a  market  for  land. 
Yet  it  is  notorious  that  in  England,  at  all  events,  land 
is  not  universally  rack-rented.     But  where  is  it  that 


46  SOCIAL   WEALTH. 

the  theoretical  right  is  not  exercised  ?  It  is  sub- 
stantially true  that  where  the  manorial  groups,  sub- 
stituted for  the  old  village  groups,  survive,  there  are 
no  rack-rents.  What  is  sometimes  called  the  feudal 
feelinc;  has  much  in  common  with  the  old  feeling  of 
brotherhood  which  forbade  hard  bargains  "  (Y.  C, 
199.) 

That  rack-rent  and  the  taking  advantage  of  the 
necessities  of  others  to  drive  unequal  bargains  Avas 
transmitted  from  the  early  times,  and  originated  in 
the  common  antipathy  to  strangers  or  outsiders,  and 
so  inconsistent  with  the  fraternal  feelings  which  ob- 
tained in  more  primitive  communities,  there  remains 
no  doubt.  In  the  Ancient  Laws  of  Ireland,  as  quoted 
by  this  author,  "  the  three  rents  are  rack-rent  from  a 
person  of  a  strange  tribe — a  fair  rent  from  one  of  the 
tribe — and  the  stipulated  rent,  which  is  j^aid  equally 
by  the  tribe  and  the  strange  tribe."  Competition 
rents  could  only  arise  by  regarding  the  letting  and 
hiring  of  land  as  a  purchase  or  sale  for  a  period  of 
time,  with  the  price  spread  over  that  period.  He 
proceeds  to  add  that  "  if  the  writer  [of  treatises  on 
political  economy]  had  always  recollected  that  a 
competition  rent  is,  after  all,  nothing  but  price  pay- 
able by  instalments,  much  unnecessarily  mysterious 
language  might  have  been  spared,  and  some  doubtful 
theories  as  to  the  origin  of  rent  might  have  been 
avoided." 

The  motive  in  exacting  a  competitive  price  for 
rent,  or  any  exchangeable  thing,  is  the  reverse  of  a 
fraternal  or  friendly  impulse.  It  is  always  attempted 
to  be  justified  by  specious  reasonings  and  baseless 
assumptions.    It  is  antagonism,  not  mutualism.     Be- 


RISE   AND    GROWTH    OF    CAPITALISM.  47 

tween  tlie  advantage  taken  of  another's  necessities  to 
drive  a  sharp  bargain,  there  is  only  one  step  to  an 
act  which  shall  reduce  that  other  to  a  dire  neces- 
sity, in  order  to  increase  the  advantage  to  be  realized. 
This  step  is  taken  whenever,  under  the  false  assump- 
tion that  land  is  a  commodity,  proprietorship)  of  it  is 
claimed  either  by  direct  usurpation,  or  under  the 
pretense  of  purchase,  to  the  exclusion  of  those  who 
need  to  occupy  it.  It  is  this  step  which  constitutes 
capitalism.  Free  competition,  indifferently  em- 
ployed, may  embrace,  possibl}-,  the  obtaining  a  bet- 
ter price  from  another's  distress.  Capitalism  is  the 
systematic  reduction  of  the  many  to  want,  that  ad- 
vantage may  be  taken  of  their  needs. 

But  such  result  springs,  as  we  have  seen,  from  the 
erratic  pla}'  of  the  primal  forces.  With  the  harmonic 
and  complemental  action  of  the  individual  and  social 
aims,  there  could  be  no  place  for  capitalism,  and 
with  the  advent  of  mutual  co-operation,  and  recipro- 
cal exchange,  and  the  disappearance  of  artificial 
capital,  wealth  would  be  more  generally  distributed 
and  greatly  increased.  With  the  broadest  liberty  to 
the  individual,  society  would  exist  to  guard  the  equal 
rights  of  all,  and  thus  secure  its  own  stability  and 
progress  by  promoting  the  well-being  and  normal 
development  of  each  member. 


CHAPTEE  ly. 

UNEARNED    INCREASE. 

The  sources  of  unearned  increase  or  income  may 
properly  be  divided  into  three  categories  from  the 
especial  sources  from  which  they  are  derived : 

First.  Profits — derived  mainly  in  process  of  the 
exchange  of  commodities. 

Second.  Interest — derived  from  the  loan  of  money, 
or  of  forms  of   capitalized  wealth  other  than  land. 

Third.  Rent — derived  from  the  privilege  to  use 
the  land,  or  to  occupy  dwellings  and  other  improve- 
ments upon  the  land. 

Profits  arise  mainly  in  the  process  of  exchange. 
When  two  attempt  to  efi'ect  a  transfer  of  two  com- 
modities with  each  other,  there  is  quite  sure  to  arise 
a  question  as  to  how  much  of  one  shall  be  exchanged 
for  a  certain  amount  of  the  other ;  and  exactness  as 
to  values,  even  if  both  were  desirous  of  dealing  fairly, 
would  be  difficult  to  determine.  But  their  agree- 
ment is  supposed  to  fix  the  ratio  with  some  approach 
to  equity.  And  the  accidental  advantage  which  either 
might  attain  is  very  likely  to  be  reversed  in  the  next 
transaction,  and  consequently  could  hardly  be  classed 
with  profit.  When,  however,  a  third  party  enters 
into  the  transaction,  and  becomes  a  go-between  for 
two  or  more  parties  with  commodities  to  dispose  of 
for  other  commodities,  the  matter  of  profit  first  pre- 

48 


UNEARNED   INCEEASE.  49 

sents  itself  in  a  distinct  form.  The  merchant  is  the 
representative  man  of  profits,  as  the  banker  is  of  in- 
terest and  the  Lmdlord  of  rent. 

Let  us  take  it  up  and  analyze  it  carefully.  We  will 
take  a  most  simple  instance,  that  no  confusion  may 
arise  from  the  introduction  of  lateral  questions. 

A  farmer  raises  jjotatoes  and  a  shoemaker  makes 
shoes.  It  is  convenient^  for  each  to  store  them  with 
the  merchant  of  their  village,  who  will  be  in  a  certain 
way  the  one  to  determine  how  many  potatoes  the 
farmer  who  wants  the  shoes  shall  give  for  them  to 
the  shoemaker  who  wants  the  potatoes.  Even  if 
money  is  used  in  each  of  the  transactions,  the  opera- 
tion is  the  same.  Taking  it  for  granted  that,  as  be- 
tween the  farmer  and  shoemaker  the  exchange  is  a 
tolerably  fair  one,  Avhat  rule  determines  the  compen- 
sation of  the  merchant  ?  The  economist  will  answer 
that  he  has  done  to  both  a  service,  and  the  compen- 
sation is  to  be  determined  by  competition,  as  is  the 
price  of  the  potatoes  and  of  the  shoes.  And  while 
all  stand  on  an  equal  footing,  there  seems  no  objec- 
tion to  this  determination.  By  this  rule  the  farmer 
is  paid  for  his  labor  in  raising  and  bringing  the 
I)roduct  to  market ;  the  shoemaker,  for  his  labor  and 
material  in  the  shoes,  and  the  merchant  for  his 
service  in  the  exchange.  But  under  free  competi- 
tion he  woidd  not  l)e  likely  to  receive  more  for  his 
services  than  each  of  them  in  ])roportion  to  the  time 
employed,  for  certainly  the  work  is  not  more  labori- 
ous or  repulsive  than  theirs.  But  even  if  ho  did,  it 
would  still  1)6  his  irar/is,  and  not  a  ])rotit — for  that 
means  something  l)oyo)id  tlic  ])aymeiit  for  services 
rendered.     But  would  it  be  right  that  he  be  paid  no 


50  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

interest  on  his  mouey  emplo^-ed  in  business,  and  on 
the  rent  of  the  premises  he  requires  for  business? 
But  if  he  parts  with  a  portion  of  this  compensation 
for  interest  on  borrowed  money,  and  as  rent  for  a 
hired  store,  he  still  has  made  no  profit ;  and  it  may 
happen  a  part  of  even  his  fair  wages  for  the  service 
he  has  rendered  goes  the  same  way.  Besides,  the 
others  also  employ  means  in  their  business.  There 
is  evidently,  then,  no  room  for  profits  here.  Besides, 
there  is  more  or  less  risk  in  all  mercantile  enter- 
prises, and  still  another  portion  of  his  earnings  may 
have  gone  justly  for  assurance. 

However  liberally  the  merchant  under  such  cir- 
cumstances might  sometimes  be  paid,  it  is  very 
evident  that  no  great  disparity  could  long  exist  in 
the  compensation  of  these  several  callings,  did  not 
some  other  factor  enter  into  the  calculation.  Under 
free  competition  the  pay  of  each  would  certainly 
tend  to  equality.  Besides,  the  merchant  is  placed 
in  a  position  to  know  better  than  either  of  the  others 
the  marketable  value  of  the  articles,  and  of  his  own 
services,  and  more  intelligence  in  these  respects  is 
rightly  expected  of  him.  Now,  whatever  his  decision 
in  the  matter  of  the  compensation  may  be,  he  must 
decide  his  share  to  be  either  wages  or  profits,  or  else 
both  as  wages  and  profits.  That  he  cannot  charge  it 
wholly  as  profits,  is  seen  from  the  fact  that  he  would 
relinquish,  then,  all  claim  for  services,  and  would  be 
guilty  of  taking  "  something  for  nothing,"  and  playing 
falsely  with  matters  entrusted  to  his  decision.  But 
if  he  is  paid  for  his  service,  by  what  pretense  does 
he  also  charge  up  profits  against  his  customers?  or 
how,  under  a  system  of  natural  competition,  would 


UNEARNED   INCREASE.  51 

he  be  able  to  do  so  and  jet  succeed  iu  being  em- 
ployed ? 

In  the  prosecution  of  a  business  other  than  mere 
trading,  where  labor  is  employed  and  material  worked 
up  into  new  forms  and  new  utilities  result,  there  is 
a  greater  complexity  of  transactions  and  interests, 
but  they  all  are  reducible  to  the  same  terms.  These 
are  the  services  which  the  operator  performs  for  the 
producer  of  the  material,  the  laborer,  who  has  his 
labor  only  to  sell,  the  machine  or  tool  mater,  etc. 
In  the  parlance  of  the  economists,  he  purchases  all 
these  and  sells  them  in  the  commodities  thus  pro- 
duced and  sold.  Now,  in  all  this  he  either  performs 
a  service  to  those  from  whom  he  purchases  and  to 
whom  he  sells,  or  he  does  not.  If  not,  he  can  make 
no  just  claim  to  compensation  whatever,  and  in  any 
truly  competitive  struggle  would  be  unable  to  receive 
any.  If  recompensed  for  his  services,  any  claim  for 
profits  must  be  fraudulent  and  unjust,  for  no  one  can 
be  paid  twice  for  the  same  work  and  be  innocent. 
If  he  has  employed  hired  money,  factories,  or  lands, 
and  ])aid  interest  and  rent  for  them,  so  may  those 
witli  whom  he  has  dealt,  and  the  moneys  he  has  ab- 
sorbed from  his  business  to  meet  those  obligations 
are  not  profits;  and  however  he  may  be  leagued  with 
the  banker  and  landlord,  it  is  not  as  an  operator  or 
merchant  that  the  profit  is  taken,  but  as  a  banker  or 
landlord,  or  as  a  conspirator  with  one  or  both  of 
them. 

It  is  easy  to  anticipate  th(^  ])r()test  which  will  be 
raised  against  bringing  morals  into  economics,  and 
sucli  is  not  my  intention,  fartlier  than  tlu^y  are  in- 
volved in  civil  law  and  social  economy;  but  it  may  be 


52  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

well  to  remind  critics  tlins  captious,  that  tlie  highest 
moral  quality,  Truth,  is  essential  to  any  scientific 
investigation  whatsoever.  If  we  may  not  know  the 
truth  of  any  transaction  we  are  in  no  position  to  de- 
cide any  question  in  regard  to  it.  It  is  evident  that 
profits  which  depend  upon  falsehood,  deception,  sup- 
pression of  facts,  misrepresentation  or  adulteration, 
or  upon  false  claims  and  pretenses,  can  have  no  place 
in  any  scientific  inquiry.  With  these  elements 
eliminated  from  business  transactions,  it  is  quite 
plain  that  nothing  would  remain  to  the  trader  but 
payment  for  his  services.  Exchange  is  a  social,  not 
a  private  affair,  and  in  the  transfer  and  distribution 
of  commodities,  the  entire  process  is  the  result  of 
attempts  at  mutual  and  reciprocal  interchange.  It 
may  be  to  the  private  interest  of  the  trader  to  ob- 
struct, as  trade  is  now  conducted,  forestall  and  corner 
the  concurrent  tendencies  to  exchange.  It  certainly 
is  the  interest  of  the  whole  people  that  such  private 
interests  shall  be  thwarted  as  far,  at  least,  as  a  pro- 
mulgation of  the  truth  will  have  that  effect,  and  here, 
really,  the  province  of  the  scientist  ends.  It  may  be 
well  to  refer,  in  this  connection,  to  the  fact  that  this 
fear  of  moral  sentiment,  by  writers  on  political  econ- 
omy and  civil  law,  is  wholly  too  one-sided  to  be 
treated  with  the  least  respect ;  for  while  it  deprecates 
the  interference,  in  any  way,  of  ethics  against  the 
"  law  of  the  market,"  and  the  right  to  obtain  all  one 
can  of  advantage  in  a  trade,  it  whines  like  a  whipped 
school-boy  about  the  "  sacred  rights  of  property," 
and  "  the  inviolability  of  contract,"  whenever  its  as- 
sumed prerogatives  are  questioned.  It  is  significant 
that   our    courts  will   cite  with   deepest  unction  the 


TTNEAENED   INCREASE.  53 

GoLDEX  Rule,  wlieu  rights  of  property  are  inyolved, 
but  wliolly  ignore  it  when  the  fulfilment  of  a  con- 
tract is  at  issue,  however  unjust  or  oppressive  it  may 
have  become  in  operation. 

If  a  man  is  bound,  as  the  judge  charges  in  a  case 
where  another  allows  my  property  to  be  injured, 
through  carelessness  or  negligence,  by  the  rule  that 
he  should  do  by  me  as  he  would  have  me  do  by  him, 
why  is  he  not  bound  by  the  same  law  when  a  con- 
tract works  to  my  injury  and  loss,  and  which  was 
obtained  by  him  for  the  purpose  not  to  do  right  by 
me,  but  to  do  me  wrong,  such  as  he  would  not  will- 
ingly have  me  do  to  him  ?  Or  when  the  property  of 
the  people  is  in  tlie  hands  of  the  merchant,  and  in  a 
degree  he  has  the  power  to  fix  the  price,  not  only  of 
his  own  services,  but  of  those  of  his  customers,  why 
is  he  not  bound  to  do  to  others  as  he  does  by  him- 
self? I  may  as  well  follow  here  these  sophistries  to 
their  just  conclusion.  It  will  be  urged  that  advan- 
tage-taking should  be  justified  in  order  that  people 
may  learn  to  beware  of  making  unequal  or  one-sided 
contracts ;  but  this  reason  is  also  unilateral,  so  to 
speak,  since  it  is  not  applied  to  the  other  side,  where 
a  question  of  property  is  concerned,  and  where  the 
example  would  have  been  equall}^  salutary  to  the 
property  holder,  by  teaching  him  to  beware  of  trust- 
ing his  property  in  careless  hands.  Besides,  con- 
tracts of  the  nature  we  are  treating  are  made  under 
duress  and  in  tlie  interest  of  capitalism  always. 

From  wliat  we  liave  seen,  profits,  distinct  and  in 
addition  to  payment  of  services,  can  have  no  honest 
existence  where  two  parties  to  a  transaction  are  equi- 
tably related  to  each  other  and  duly  informed.     No 


54  SOCIAL   WEALTH. 

one  -svho  knows  and  can  avoid  it  will  pay  a  profit. 
And  no  one  knowingly  will  deal  at  a  loss  when  lie  can 
deal  without.  If  both  parties  can  gain  in  a  transac- 
tion, then  the  benefit  is  mutual,  and  there  is  no  profit 
as  of  one  over  the  other,  which  is  the  sole  character- 
istic of  capitalistic  increase.  i 

Before  passing  to  the  consideration  of  interest  as 
a  means  of  increase,  we  may  notice  the  identity  in 
character  between  the  three  forms.  The  definitions 
are  interchangeable.     For  example  : 

Interest  is  the  jwofit  which  the  money  lender  or 
capitalist  derives  from  the  employment  of  his  capital. 
Again, 

Pkofit  is  the  interest  which  the  operator  or  mer- 
chant realizes  from  his  money  invested  in  his  busi- 
ness. 

Rent  is  the  interest  which  the  landholder  receives 
from  the  sum  of  money  invested  in  land,  or  for  that 
sum  of  money  for  Avhich  said  land  would  selL  Still 
again, 

Peoeit  is  the  rent  of  the  land  which  had  been  sold 
to  obtain  the  capital  employed,  or  for  which  such 
capital  would  exchange  ;  and, 

Interest  is  the  rent  of  so  much  land  as  was  sold  to 
raise  the  principal,  or  for  which  the  principal  would 
exchange. 

We  can  but  consider,  then,  that  these  three  forms 
of  increase  are  essentially  one,  and  rest  ultimately 
upon  the  sole,  logical  base,  the  ability  of  the  land  to 
'produce  spontaneously. 

But  we  have  elsewhere  fully  demonstrated  that 
spontaneous  productions  have  no  price  or  exchange- 
able ratio,  except  in  the  degree  that  dominion  over  the 


UNEARNED   INCREASE — INTEREST.  55 

land  gives  dominion  over  man;  for  without  the  two 
there  is,  aud  cau  be,  uo  increase  of  social  wealth. 
Not  only  nothing  else  produces  anywhere  any  in- 
crease of  wealth,  but  neither  man  nor  the  soil  sepa- 
rately produces  anything.  It  is  only  by  their  union 
that  prodi,ictive  phenomena  occur.  When  these  two 
factors  are  united,  increase  of  wealth  results  legiti- 
,mately;  but  when  they  are  divorced,  no  increase 
or  even  production  at  all  is  possible.  To  introduce 
another  claimant  in  the  division  is  fraudulent.  Pro- 
duction means  more  than  placing  a  thing  in  the 
market.  That  is  but  one  phase  of  it,  though  an  im- 
portant one.  It  begins  with  the  first  application  of 
the  human  energy  to  the  raw  material,  and  ends  only 
where  consumption  begins — in  the  purchase  for  use. 
The  whole  process  or  circle  of  transportation,  storage, 
and  exchange  is  effected  through  the  application  of 
labor,  and  not  otherwise.  The  merchant,  by  the 
service  he  renders,  becomes  a  joint  owner  with  the 
others,  and  is  bound  to  account  faitlifully  to  the  other 
co-workers.  It  does,  not  change  his  social  and  in- 
dustrial rehition,  because  he  has  bought  out  the 
shares  of  the  others  ;  unless  lie  has  dealt  equitaUy  with 
them,  their  interest  is  not  cancelled,  and  the  extra  in- 
crease he  has  gained  for  himself  is  the  wages  of 
deceit  aud  fraud,  which  are  in  no  Avay  lessened  be- 
cause he  has  conspired  with  the  landlord  and  usurer 
to  share  the  profit  with  them. 

INTEREST. 

If  we  found  no  tenable  ground  for  profits,  still  less 
shall  we  find  any  rational  justification  for  interest. 
The  man  who  puts  his   accumulated  earnings  into 


56  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

some  industrial  or  commercial  enterprise,  and  accom- 
panies it  with  his  personal  service  in  useful  over- 
sight, renders  service  and  assumes  risks  and  respon- 
sibilities which  justly  entitle  him  to  a  liberal  share 
in  the  resulting  production.  If  his  compensation  is 
unusuall}^  large  in  one  venture,  it  begets  competition 
and  is  liable  to  become  unusually  small  in  another ; 
but  with  the  money-lender  it  is  wholly  different. 
The  secured  creditor  does  nothing  of  this  kind,  and 
is  no  more  entitled  to  a  share  of  the  resultant  pro- 
duction than  if  he  had  placed  his  gold  with  a  safe- 
deposit  company,  for  which  he  would  have  to  pay 
storage  instead  of  receiving  a  premium.  In  indus- 
trial crises,  which  follow  interest-taking  periodically, 
by  an  inexorable  mathematical  law,  it  is  the  means 
employed  in  business,  or  which  has  been  trusted  out 
without  security,  on  which  the  whole  burden  of  bank- 
ruptcies falls.  The  secured  loan  does  not  suffer,  but 
is  relativel}^  increased  in  value  by  the  ruin  wrought 
to  all  other  interests.  Dr.  Adam  Smith  truly  de- 
scribes such  a  capitalist  as  the  ^^  person  ivho  lias  a 
capital  from  ivhich  he  wishes  to  derive  a  revenue  ivithoiit 
taking  the  trouble  to  employ  it  himself ^  In  other  words, 
one  who  wishes  to  obtain  the  services  of  others  with- 
out rendering  himself  any  service  in  return,  and 
without  risk. 

The  increased  facilities  for  production  afforded  by 
loans  to  labor  is  regarded  by  many  as  a  sufficient 
reason  why  it  should  share  in  division.  But  to 
arrive  at  such  a  conclusion,  it  is  necessary  to  leave 
out  two  essential  elements  of  the  problem  , 

1st.  That   labor  is   now  unjustly  deprived  of  its 


UNEARNED   INCREASE — INTEREST.  57 

natural  riglit  of  access  to  "  tlie  raw  material  of  the 
earth,"  and  opportunity  to  employ  itself.     And, 

2d.  That  all  forms  of  accumulated  wealth  are  sub- 
ject to  inevitable  decay  and  decrease  of  value  ;  the 
surplus  product  of  agricultural  labor,  especially ; 
that  all  this  value  has  constantly  to  be  reproduced 
and  kept  good  by  labor,  and  that  the  capitalist  has 
no  other  mode  possible  for  the  conservation  of  his 
wealth  but  to  employ  it  productively.  When,  there- 
fore, he  makes  terms  with  labor,  which  requires  more 
than  return  of  service  for  service,  and  of  labor  for 
labor,  he  is  imposing  upon  the  ignorance  or  taking 
advantage  of  the  unfortunate  condition  of  the  laborer. 
But  this,  however,  he  would  be  unable  to  do  but  for 
the  enjoyment  of  monopolies  through  municipal  laws, 
which  place  the  laborer  at  such  disadvantage  that 
bis  necessities  compel  him  to  accept  terms  which  the 
capitalist  finds  no  necessity  to  make  equal. 

Under  the  operation  of  natural  law,  the  person 
having  means  to  conserve  would  find  a  necessity  to 
recombine  it  with  labor  in  order  to  prolong  its  ex- 
istence, equally  as  great  as  the  person  who  labored 
would  find  for  means  to  render  his  labor  productive. 
But  when  society  grants  privilege  to  a  class  to  con- 
trol the  earth  and  raw  material,  it  is  plain  that  labor 
must  accept  the  conditions  of  capital,  or  starve,  and 
that  the  capital  is  not  only  able  to  throw  the  entire 
rniuH  upon  the  laborer  of  maintaining  his  decaying 
property  intact,  but  to  lay  all  labor  under  an  addi- 
tional tribute,  which  shall  still  fartlier  isolate  wealth 
and  Ixiget  increasing  dependence  of  the  industrial 
class  u])on  its  accumulations. 

A  false  element  is  introduced  into  the  question  of 


58  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

awards,  wbicli  bestows  tlie  greater  share  of  labor's 
product  upon  those  who  do  not  labor.  Whoever  will 
think  can  see  how  impossible  it  is  for  such  a  system 
to  operate,  without  subverting  all  just  principles  of 
division,  and  subjecting  labor  to  the  grossest  in- 
justice. It  will  be  seen  that  if  one  man  starts  with 
an  amount  of  capital  equal  to  what  another  can  earn 
or  produce  in  a  period  required  to  double  the  capital 
at  compound  interest,  he  will  have  absorbed  just  as 
much  as  the  labor  of  one  man  has  produced.  At  the 
end  of  the  second  period  he  will  have  quadrupled  his 
investment,  and  at  the  end  of  the  twelfth  period  he 
will  have  multiplied  it  4,096  times,  having  accumu- 
lated, within  the  last  period  alone,  2,048  times  the 
original  sum  invested,  or  the  amount  which  the 
laborer  can  have  produced  in  that  period.  If  by 
invention,  discoveries,  or  other  favoring  circum- 
stances, production  has  increased,  it  has  at  most 
been  able  only  to  change  the  difference.  If  in  a  gen- 
eration it  should  add  one  to  what  it  had  previously 
been,  it  would  only  give  production  two  in  the  twelfth 
period  to  balance  the  2,048  of  the  capitalist.  Neces- 
sarily, by  the  operation  of  the  absorptive  series,  labor 
never  gets  more  than  a  moiety  of  what  it  produces. 
The  operation  cannot  absorb  more  than  labor  pro- 
duces. But  this  does  not  prove  that  the  accumula- 
tions do  not  proceed  as  the  illustration  shows,  or  are 
any  the  less  oppressive  to  labor. 

The  least  per  centage  to  the  capitalist,  not  the  pay 
for  service  rendered,  involves  accumulation  by  equal 
ratios,  in  periods  of  greater  or  lesser  length.  To  this 
no  production  of  industry  is  equal  which  the  world 
ever  has  or  can  know.     Such  exaction  is  therefore 


UNEARNED   INCREASE — INTEREST.  59 

wlioUy  "witliont  any  logical  foiiudation,  and  is  as  un- 
scientific as  it  is  oppressive  and  unjust.  Its  j^resence 
in  our  industrial  system  must  therefore  be  referred 
to  causes  flowing  from  unequal  conditions,  usurpation 
and  misapprehension  of  economic  law,  and  not  from 
any  necessity  in  the  development  of  the  laws  of  in- 
dustry and  reciprocal  exchange. 

Taken  in  connection  with  our  S3'stem  of  land  tenure 
— without  which  its  existence  would  hardly  be  pos- 
sible— this  system  acquires  a  power  so  fearful  that 
no  friend  of  his  race  can  contemplate  it  without  de- 
testation and  horror.  The  accelerated  velocity  with 
which  it  enables  the  avaricious  and  unprincipled  to 
achieve  the  complete  monopoly  of  the  earth,  is  far 
more  dangerous  and  destructive  of  human  rights  than 
any  "divine  right"  of  kings,  or  any  mere  law  of 
entail  or  right  of  primogeniture  can  j)ossibly  be. 

It  is  to  be  understood  that  when  I  speak  of  the 
operation  of  tliis  method  of  accumulation,  I  suppose 
the  capitalist  to  have  the  ability  to  supply  his  own 
wants  by  his  own  efforts.  If  his  income  from  usance 
merely  supplies  what  he  consumes,  extravagantly  or 
otherwise,  then  he  is  a  siuecurist,  quartered  by  this 
system  upon  society,  whose  industry  is  rendered 
tributary  to  the  support  of  a  person  wholly  useless 
to  it. 

To  show  with  greater  distinctness  the  operation  of 
the  principle  on  whicli  interest  operates,  let  us  sup- 
pose that  the  land  sliould  be  loaned  ;  and  that,  in- 
stead of  the  annual  percentage  being  paid  in  money, 
it  was  sti])ulated  tf)  be  paid  in  kind  ;  that,  as  interest 
on  money  is  ]):nd  in  moueij,  so  the  rent  or  interest  on 
land  should  be  paid  in  land.     Now,  a  man  borrowing 


60  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

land  on  siTch  conditions  would,  in  a  dozen  years  or 
so,  pay  back  as  interest  all  he  had  borrowed,  and 
must  of  necessity  repudiate  the  princijjal — become 
bankrupt  in  land.  For  it  is  evident  that  in  the 
period  in  which  the  pa3'fRents  of  interest  would 
amount  to  a  sum  equal  to  the  principal,  an  amount 
of  land  equal  to  itself,  would  be  required  to  be  re- 
turned to  the  owner  for  its  own  use ;  and,  as  the 
amount  of  land  in  any  town,  state,  nation,  or  the 
world,  is  a  fixed  and  definite  one,  the  operation  of 
any  such  stipulation  would  be  impossible,  and  be- 
sides producing  untold  embarrassment  and  suffering, 
must  end  at  last  in  repudiation.  A  system  of  con- 
tracts like  the  above  would  be  held  in  all  courts  as 
invalid,  because  they  involved  conditions  well  known 
to  be  impossible. 

But  the  operation  of  our  credit  system,  and  pay- 
ment of  interest  on  capital  to  those  who  take  no  care 
in  its  employment,  virtually  involves  the  same  con- 
sequences. By  the  accumulations  of  interest  upon  a 
given  sum,  the  possessor  can  purchase  a  given  amount 
of  land  in  every  period,  corresponding  to  the  amount 
of  the  principal  invested.  This  enables  the  capital- 
istic class,  as  distinguished  from  the  industrial  or 
commercial  class,  to  control  the  ownership  of  the 
land  just  as  effectually  as  the  titled  nobility  of  any 
country  ever  did. 

Having  discussed  the  general  question  of  increase, 
the  principal  purpose  here  has  been  to  show  how  in- 
timately the  interest  question  is  involved  with  the 
monopoly  of  land.  It  is  plain,  moreover,  from  this 
showing,  that  there  is  no  such  difference  in  the  rate 
of  rent  and  of  interest  as  has  been  contended  by  Mr. 


UNEAENED   INCEEASE — INTEEEST.  61 

George  and  others.  As  the  capitalized  wealth  of  any 
community  or  nation  increases,  the  nominal  rate  of 
interest  goes  down  with  wages,  but  its  share  in  the 
annual  production  remains  the  same  if  it  does  not 
increase.  Let  the  rent^f  land  be  paid  in  land  as 
rent  of  money  is  paid  in  money,  and  the  rent  rate  will 
be  seen  to  decrease  in  the  same  ratio  as  interest  or 
wages.  It  could  not  possibly  be  otherwise.  In  a 
new  country  where  land  is  plenty,  money  and  labor 
scarce,  wages  will  be  high,  interest  will  be  high,  and 
rent  low.  The  farm  renting  for  two  hundred  dollars 
will  at  most  onlybe  worth  two  thousand,  and  the  rent 
will  buy  the  owner  another  farm  in  ten  years.  But  as 
the  population  increases,  and  the  wages  and  interest 
decrease,  it  will  be  possible  to  increase  the  amount 
of  rent,  but  the  price  of  land  will  also  have  risen  and 
in  a  still  more  rapid  manner,  so  that,  although  the 
rate  of  rent  per  acre  may  have  increased,  the  rate 
per  cent,  will  have  decreased  the  same  as  the  rate 
per  cent,  of  money.  And  it  will  take  twelve,  fifteen, 
twentj^  or  thirty  years  for  the  rent  of  one  farm  to 
enable  the  owner  to  purchase  another,  the  same  as 
it  will  take  one  capital  to  beget  another.  So  that 
while  the  wages  of  labor  are  constantly  decreasing 
with  the  growth  of  capitalism,  both  the  landlord  and 
the  money  lord  are  enabled  to  double  their  capital 
of  money  or  of  land  in  equal  periods  corresponding  to 
each  other  in  every  essential  feature. 

When  interest  rules  at  7  per  cent,  it  is  possible  to 
double  the  capital  in  about  ten  years.  When  6  per 
cent.,  in  twelve  years  ;  5  per  cent.,  in  fourteen  years; 
4  per  cent.,  in  seventeen  years,  and  at  3  per  cent,  in 
loss  than  twenty-one  years.     At  7  per  cent,  rent,  the 


62  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

farm,  without  any  labor  or  contribution  of  his  own, 
will  have  "earned"  the  owner  in  fort}'  j'ears  four- 
teen other  farms  of  equal  value.  At  6  per  cent.,  nine 
farms  ;  at  5  per  cent.,  six  farms ;  at  4  per  cent.,  five 
other  farms,  and  at  3  per  cent,  nearly  four  other 
farms.  A  money-lender  Avill  have  increased  his 
capital  in  the  same  or  even  more  rapid  ratio,  the 
rate  being  usually  a  little  higher  for  money  than  for 
land,  as  the  latter  is  considered  safer  as  an  invest- 
ment or  for  security,  and  cautious  holders  are  willing 
to  sacrifice  the  higher  rate  to  the  greater  security 
against  loss  of  principal. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark,  how  much  has  been  made 
of  the  "  progression  of  numbers  "  by  Malthus  and 
those  economists  who  have  availed  themselves  of  his 
subtleties  to  show  that  destitution  is  referable  to  the 
laws  of  nature  and  the  arithmetic  of  the  case,  and  not 
to  unequal  laws.  It  is  shown  that  population  in- 
creases by  "equal  ratio,"  while  the  production  of 
food,  at  most,  can  only  be  increased  by  "  equal 
differences."  Thus,  it  is  said,  while  production  of 
food  in  several  periods  may  proceed  with  a  differ- 
ence of  two,  it  cannot  possibly  be  more  than  2,  4,  6, 
8,  10,  12,  14,  16;  while  in  the  same  periods  the  in- 
crease in  population  will  be  2,  4,  8,  16,  32,  64,  128, 
256.  It  is  a  little  strange  that  Malthus,  nor  the 
economists  who  follow  him,  take  any  notice  of  the 
same  law  as  applied  to  production  and  taking  of 
interest. 

Production  by  labor  proceeds  by  equal  differences, 
interest  and  rent  by  equal  ratios,  and  at  higher  ratios 
than  the  difference  in  production  ever  obtains.  Yet 
this  power  of  increase,  which  takes  from  the  pro- 


UNEAENED    INCREASE — INTEREST.  63 

ducer  and  gives  to  tlie  idler,  is  not  a  law  of  nature 
but  a  law  of  tlie  state  or  municipality.  Probably 
for  this  reason  its  application  here  has  not  been 
alluded  to,  although  to  it  can  be  referred  mainly 
all  the  famines  and  pauperisms  which  have  been  as- 
cribed to  over-population.  Usury  and  rent  have 
been  the  great  levers  by  which  the  homes  of  millions 
of  millions  have  been  alienated  and  gone  to  widen 
the  domain  to  the  sway  of  avarice  and  to  the  love  of 
lordly  domination. 

The  insanity  of  interest  is  shown  by  considering 
the  sources  from  which  it  is  derived  : 

(1)  From  the  principal  loaned,  resulting  in  bank- 
ruptcy to  the  borrower,  and  perhaps  loss  to  the 
lender. 

(2)  From  the  stock  of  the  borrower,  resulting  in 
his  complete  impoverishment,  if  continued,  since  the 
principal  borrowed  must  be  returned  intact. 

(3)  From  the  wages,  or  equitable  compensation 
of  the  borrower,  or  from  the  natural  wages  of  his 
employees,  or  from  the  profits  he  has  been  able  to 
realize  through  unjust  and  irrational  trade  from  the 
public  with  whom  he  has  dealt. 

There  is  no  other  source  from  Avhich  he  could  have 
derived  tlie  interest  p;iid,  unless  the  exploded  notion 
be  accepted  that  the  laud  can  produce  wealth  with- 
out labor,  or  that  goods  in  process  of  exchange, 
witliout  labor,  increase  in  quantity  or  value. 

To  attach  increased  value  to  things  which  are 
being  operated  upon  by  the  reproductive  forces  of 
nature,  aside  from  the  obvious  injustice  of  exacting 
the  liibor  product  of  another  for  their  operation,  and 
of  attempting  to  ox(;hange  the  work  of  nature  for  the 


64  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

work  of  a  fellow-being,  is  conspicuous  when  we  con- 
sider that  the  conservation  of  our  i:)erishable  pro- 
duct into  a  durable  one,  is  a  quite  sufficient  induce- 
ment to  all  salutary  work.  Ditching  for  irrigation, 
planting  trees,  indeed  all  the  things  cited  as  proving 
the  right  of  taking  increase,  would  be  done,  is  done, 
without  any  such  motive  on  the  part  of  those  who 
do  the  work.  The  men  who  have  built  our  canals, 
our  railroads,  our  aqueducts,  and  made  our  numerous 
public  improvements  have  not  been  paid,  besides  the 
wages  for  their  labor,  an  annuity  from  the  use  of  these 
works,  for  all  time  to  come.  The  capitalist  alone 
receives  such  tribute,  and  this,  not  because  he  would 
not  otherwise  have  lent  his  money  to  promote  the 
work,  for  it  is  proverbial  that  he  is  more  ready  to 
let  money  when  the  rate  is  low  than  when  it  is  high. 
Indeed,  with  good  security,  he  would  always  prefer 
to  have  it  stored  for  him  than  to  take  the  risk  of 
keeping  it  by  him,  were  it  not  that  through  the  assist' 
ance  of  our  laws,  he  is  enabled  to  exact  tribute  in 
this  form  from  the  labor  of  the  people,  by  charging 
for  the  "  flight  of  time,"  and  the  action  of  "  natural 
forces."  It  is  also  evident  that  the  "reproductive 
forces  of  nature,"  and  "the  utilization  of  the  varia- 
tions in  the  powers  of  nature  and  of  man,  which  is 
effected  by  exchange,"  are  present  in  every  form  of 
production  and  exchange  whatever,  as  well  as  in 
those  instanced  by  Mr.  George;  for  unless  these 
forces  work  with  the  labor  of  man,  he  produces 
nothing  and  exchanges  nothing.  The  advantage  of 
exchange,  whatever  it  may  be,  is  mutual,  or  no 
equitable  exchange  is  made. 

Mr.  George,  when  he  pays  his  washerwoman,  pays 


UNEAENED  INCREASE — INTEREST.         65 

her  for  her  muscular  exertion,  and  the  exercise  of 
skill  in  her  profession.  If  she  were,  in  addition  to 
that,  to  charge  him  for  the  use  of  the  sun  and  air 
which  dry  them,  and  without  whose  aid  her  labor 
would  be  of  no  service  to  him,  he  would  justly  com- 
plain. The  boatman  who  sets  him  across  a  stream 
does  not  charge  him  for  the  buo^^anc}-  which  iloats 
his  boat  or  the  wind  which  wafts  the  sail.  It  was 
left  to  capitalism  to  devise  the  magic  wand  which 
turns  everything  it  touches  into  gold,  and  thereby 
tax  labor  for  every  foot  of  land  it  occupies,  and  every 
field  it  seeks  to  cultivate,  with  every  force  of  nature 
it  attempts  to  utilize,  because  the  grasp  it  has  se- 
cured upon  the  land  gives  it  control  over  all  natural, 
including  the  human  forces.  This  author  makes  a 
special  plea  for  interest  or  increase,  which  I  will  let 
him  state  in  his  own  words.  He  supposes  an  in- 
stance where  "  in  one  place  a  given  amount  of  labor 
will  secure  200  in  vegetable  or  100  in  animal  food. 
In  another  place  these  conditions  are  reversed,  and 
the  same  amount  of  labor  w^ll  produce  100  in  vege- 
table food  or  200  in  animal."  But  by  devoting  labor 
in  one  place  to  the  procurement  of  vegetable  food, 
and  in  the  other  to  the  procurement  of  animal  food, 
and  exchanging  the  quantit}'  required,  the  people  of 
each  place  Avill  be  able,  by  the  given  amount  of  la- 
bor, to  procure  200  of  botli,  less  the  expenses  of  ex- 
change ;  so  that  in  each  place  the  produce  which  is 
taken  from  use  and  devoted  to  exchange,  brings  back 
an  increase  "  (Progress  and  Poverty,  163). 

And  yet  he  admits  that  labor  is  required  to  effect 
exchange;  but  thinks  "there  is  a  distinguishable 
force  co-operating  with  that  of  labor  which  makes  it 


G6  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

impossible  to  measure  the  result  solely  by  the  labor 
expended ;  but  renders  the  amount  of  capital,  and 
the  time  it  is  in  use,  integral  parts  in  the  sum  of 
forces."  Now,  since  the  capital  of  trade  is  only  that 
part  of  the  product  of  labor  seeking  to  be  conserved, 
the  time  it  is  employed  is  chargeable,  if  at  all,  to 
the  other  side  of  the  equation,  since  its  owner,  in 
permitting  its  incorporation  with  another  enterprise, 
or  productive  circle,  elects  to  treat  it  as  present  labor. 
Besides,  what  other  capital  is  there  in  the  transac- 
tion he  has  instanced?  Only  "the  given  amount  of 
labor,"  in  the  procurement  of  the  200  of  animal  and 
the  200  of  vegetable  food,  and  the  service  of  trans- 
portation and  exchange.  There  is  a  surplus  of  50 
of  vegetable  and  50  of  animal  food  which  has  to  be 
awarded  somewhere.  It  is  possible  that  the  ex- 
change and  transportation  may  not  absorb  all  this ; 
but  there  must  be  no  protective  tariff  or  monopolized 
line  of  transportation,  which  takes  "  all  the  traffic 
will  bear  "  between  the  two  places.  I  am  unable  to 
see  any  increase  which  goes  not  to  the  labor  as  natural 
wages  for  the  procurement,  transportation,  and  ex- 
change of  these  two  kinds  of  food.  It  is  difficult  to 
understand  how  more  capital  is  required  to  produce 
the  single  line  of  food  than  for  each  to  produce  both 
kinds.  Under  freedom,  neither  of  the  prodvicers 
would  change  his  habit  of  producing  both  kinds  till 
satisfied  that  the  advantage  of  change  was  a  mutual 
one,  and  not  an  advantage  to  one  side  alone,  or  to 
neither,  but  to  be  reaped  by  an  intermediate  or 
parasite. 

It  is  thought  that  as  "  the  seed   in   the   ground 
germinates  and  grows,   while  the  farmer  sleeps  or 


.  UNEARNED   INCEEASE — EENT.  67 

ploughs  new  fields,"  there  is  a  good  reason  why  a 
tax  should  be  put  u^Don  the  growth  of  food  by  the 
landlord  or  usurer.  But  if  nature  works  thus  with 
man,  she  nevertheless  awards  him  compensation 
according  to  what  he  d^es.  When  the  season's  yield 
is  large,  in  proportion  to  labor  bestowed,  the  farmer 
ma}'  get  no  more,  except  in  kind,  as  a  reduction  in 
exchangeable  value  will  bring  it  to  an  average  with 
shorter  crops.  Nature,  everywhere,  repudiates  the 
crudity,  born  of  capitalistic  assumption,  that  any- 
thing can  be  obtained  for  nothing.  Only  at  the  ex- 
pense of  labor  can  this  be  realized.  None  knows 
better  than  the  fruit  grower  and  cattle  raiser  that 
constant  attention  and  careful  labor  are  requisite  to 
success.  Nature  rewards  no  idler.  If  Shylock 
makes  his  "  ducats  breed  as  well  as  ewes  and  rams," 
it  is  not  because  either  multiplies  witliout  human  toil, 
but  for  reasons  wholl}'  outside  of  the  laws  of  indus- 
trial production  or  of  equitable  exchange. 

EENT. 

The  nature  of  rent  we  have  already  referred  to  as 
one  with  profits  and  interest,  indeed,  as  the  founda- 
tion of  both.  Its  incompatibility  with  the  principles 
of  equity  and  economy  are  most  apparent.  But  for 
what  is  called  the  "  rent  theory,"  it  would  claim  but 
a  ])assing  attention.  To  me  it  is  quite  evident  that 
Ilicardo,  who  first  propounded  this  theory,  became 
aware  of  the  impossibilitj-  of  reconciling  rent  with 
any  rational  theory  of  the  production  and  distribu- 
tion of  wealth,  yet  felt  the  necessity  of  accounting 
for  the  phenomena  in  a  manner  which  would  divert 


G8  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

attention  from  its  wholly  unjustifiable  nature.      The 
"  pure  economists,"  since  they  have  dispensed  with 
all  questions  but  the  one  of  trade,  find  themselves 
under   no   obligation   to  champion  the  theory,  and 
virtually  ignore  it,  placing  land  in  the  category  of 
things   "which   can  be  exchanged  for  money,"  and 
so,   consistently,  make  no  distinction  between  rent 
and  other  forms  of  increase.     Macleod  defines  rent 
to  be  "  the  mere  right  to  demand  compensation  for 
use,"  and  the  "  purchase  of  a  use  for  a  limited  period." 
It  could,  therefore,  be  summarily  dismissed,  but  that 
Mr.  George,  after  designating  it  as  the  main  "  but- 
tress of  the  Malthusian  theory,"  and  after  demolish- 
ing that  theory,  has  seen  fit  to  build  up  a  system 
upon  the  dismantled  buttress,  which  he  thinks  still 
remaining.     Instead  of  analyzing  rent,  he  seems  to 
regard  it  as  a  mysterious  power  which  creates  value 
independent  of  labor,  and  as  something  which  he  can 
tax  to  any  degree  without  taking  from  the  natural 
wages  of  labor ;  whereas,  it  is  wholly  due  to  exclu- 
sive land  ownership,  as  he  himself  frequently  asserts. 
According  to   Ricardo,  rent   is   not  an   arbitrary 
tribute  levied  upon  industry  by  usurped  rights,  but 
merely  the  excess  of  product,  of  the  best  land  over 
the  poorest,  as  the  latter  shall  come  into  cultivation 
or  other  use  under  the  exigencies  of  increasing  popu- 
lation.    As  two  prices  cannot  prevail  in  the  same 
market  at  the  same  time,  so  he  thinks  the  cost  of 
producing  grain  on  the  poorest  land  will  determine 
the  price  of  grain  raised  upon  the  best  land,  and  thus 
the  excess  will  determine  the  rent  which  will  be  paid 
for  its  use.     There  seems  to  me  little  necessity  for 
misapprehension  in   regard   to  this  theory.     While 


UNEARNED   INCREASE — RENT.  69 

land  is  under  exclusive  dominion  it  may  serve  in  a 
certain  way  to  explain  how  the  rent  rate  is  determined 
as  between  particular  lands.  But  this  is  by  no  means 
the  limit  of  its  use  by  the  followers  of  Eicardo, 
among  whom  Mr.  George  must  be  included.  The 
inference  is  always  sought  to  be  carried  that  it  also 
reveals  an  economic  law  under  which  only  rent  is 
developed.  It  assumes  that  rent  does  not  arise  until 
increase  of  population  forces  the  use  of  less  pro- 
ductive soils.  In  fact,  the  operation  is  directly  the 
reverse  of  this.  It  is  rent  which  forces  the  use  of 
less  productive  soils,  and  thus  creates  the  necessity, 
the  previous  existence  of  which  is  represented  to  be  the 
cause  and  justification.  If  the  land  I  till  will  yield 
40,  and  I  have  to  pay  10  rent,  it  is  evident  that  this 
will  force  the  use  of  a  qualit}'  which  will  yield  onh'  30. 
But  let  us  test  this  assumed  cause,  and  see  if  in 
the  absence  of  it  altogether  the  same  phenomena  will 
not  occur.  An  island  of  uniform  surface  and  fertility 
is  divided  equally  among  a  certain  number  of  people. 
And  to  make  the  illustration  plain,  let  us  suppose 
that  all  support  themselves  mainly  by  raising  grain. 
It  seems  quite  certain  no  rent  would  be  paid,  though 
a  number  of  incidents  might  be  conceived  under 
which  it  were  possible,  even  wliile  the  soil  in  every 
portion  remained  of  the  same  fertility.  One  circum- 
stance, however,  would  certainlj'  and  permanently 
establish  rent,  and  that  not  a  varving  productiveness 
of  tlie  land,  but  the  presence  of  laborers  who  were 
debarred  access  to  the  soil.  As  soon  as  there  arose 
an  increase  in  iJie  population  rctpdrinf/  lan<J,  ivhich  it  was 
in  the  p>oirer  of /lofderfi  to  (fen//,  land  would  liave  a  price, 
rent  would  be  offered  and  taken,  or  the  laborers  would 


70  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

offer  their  services  at  a  price  below  "  the  whole  pro- 
duct of  their  labor ;"  and  the  rise  of  rents  and  decrease 
of  wages  would  inevitably  follow  every  increase  of 
such  laborers,  just  the  same  as  if  extremes  existed  in 
the  productive  capability  of  the  land.  As  population 
increased,  land-holders  would  decrease,  under  a  sys- 
tem of  land-holding  like  ours,  and  a  divergency  of 
conditions  would  proceed  till  a  landed  aristocracy 
arose  at  one  extreme,  and  a  dependent,  wretched 
proletariat  at  the  other.  And  this  would  result,  not 
at  all  on  account  of  the  unequal  fertility  of  different 
soils,  but  wholly  because  "  tJie  increase  of  ownersldps 
had  not  kept  pace  ic'dh  the  increase  of  population ." 

The  theory  also  assumes  that  poor  land  below  the 
margin  of  cultivation  can  be  had  without  rent.  I  am 
certain  only  exceptional  cases  can  be  found  where 
land  can  be  had  at  all  without  rent,  and  these  Avill 
occur  as  often  on  the  best  as  on  the  poorest  lands. 
Often  within  the  limits  of  our  cities  fertile  patches 
are  occupied  without  rent,  while  the  settler  taking  up 
free  land  on  the  prairie  often  pays  rent  to  his  earlier 
neighbor  for  a  corn  o?  garden  j)atch. 

Under  monopoly,  often  as  now  in  Ireland,  the 
poorest  is  rented,  while  the  best  lies  idle,  in  deer- 
parks  or  sheep-farms,  the  tiller  accepting  that  which 
he  is  compelled  to.  Labor  here  has  to  deal  with 
privilege  to  which  no  economic  principle  applies,  and 
where  demand  and  supply  have  no  operation,  and  in 
which  one  party  to  any  transaction  has  the  power  to 
determine  the  compensation  of  both,  and  if  any,  a 
forced  exchange  takes  place.  Between  "  the  whole 
product  of  labor "  and  the  "  wages  bordering  on 
starvation,"  there  is  a  wide  margin  from  which  the 


UNEARNED  INCREASE — RENT.  71 

landlord  can  draw  fabulous  was-es  without  regard  to 
any  ethical  or  economic  law.  To  attempt  to  reduce 
such  stujDendous  larcenies  to  a  system  compatible 
with  the  crudest  form  of  equity,  will  forever,  as  it 
has  heretofore,  prove  the  despair  of  science. 

In  connection  with  this  theory,  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  land  is  required  for  other  purposes  than 
raising  wheat.  Indeed,  the  best  wheat  land  may 
prove  the  poorest  for  j)ulse,  garden  truck,  or  small 
fruits,  and  land  which  will  not  answer  for  either  may 
be  all  the  better  for  storehouses,  factories,  and  dwell- 
ings. The  requirement  for  land  is  as  various  as 
human  industrj^  Mr.  George  himself  (Progress  and 
Poverty,  j).  149)  recognizes  that  "  rent,  in  short,  is 
the  price  of  monopoly,  arising  from  the  reduction  to 
individual  ownership  of  natural  elements,  which 
human  exertion  can  neither  produce  nor  increase." 
How  he  can  abolish  the  monopoly  and  have  the 
price  remain  is  a  dilemma  from  which  I  do  not  feel 
bound  to  extricate  him.  On  page  219  we  find  this 
passage  :  "  The  effect  of  increasing  population  upon 
the  distribution  of  wealth  is  to  increase  rent  ...  in 
two  ways — 1st.  By  lowering  the  margin  oi  cultiva- 
tion (Kicardo's  theory) ;  and,  2d,  by  bringing  out  in 
land  special  capabilities,  otherwise  latent,  and  by 
attacliing  special  capabilities  to  particular  lands.  I 
am  disposed  to  think  tliat  the  latter  mode,  to  which 
little  attention  has  been  called  by  political  econo- 
mists, is  really  the  more  important." 

Now,  since  this  latter  mode  not  only  di£fers  from 
the  former,  but  is  the  opposite  of  it,  and  equivalent 
tf)  a  raising  of  the  margin  of  cultivation,  they  cannot 
both  support  the  same  theor}-.     But  the  above  is  by 


72  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

no  means  the  only  subject  connected  with  this  ques- 
tion to  which  the  economists  have  called  little  atten- 
tion. No  account  is  made  of  the  fact  that  the  natural 
capacity  of  land  has  very  little  to  do  with  its  actual 
]n-oductiveness,  which  depends  mainly  on  the  supply 
of  manures  and  fertilizers,  rotation  of  crops,  and 
skilful  dressing  and  keeping.  Little  attention  has 
been  given  to  the  great  drain  that  has  been  made 
upon  our  most  fertile  lands  by  the  consumption  of 
our  large  cities,  whose  sewers  are  choked  with  the 
principles  of  fertility  taken  from  the  soil,  the  rent  of 
which  still  rises. 

But  the  only  practical  test  to  which  the  theory  of 
Ricardo  was  ever  subjected  proved  it  wholly  value- 
less. On  the  agitation  for  the  rq^eal  of  the  British 
corn  laws,  it  was  urged  that  repeal  would  destroy  the 
landed  interest  by  greatl}^  reducing  rents.  But  on 
their  repeal  in  1846,  opening  the  markets  of  England 
to  the  products  of  all  the  cultivable  land  upon  the 
globe  accessible  to  British  commerce,  rents  not  did 
decline,  but  rapidly  advanced ;  and  for  more  than  a 
generation  no  perceptible  effect  has  been  discovered 
attributable  to  the  change.* 

The  point  of  greatest  importance,  as  viewed  by  the 
liicardo  school,  is  that  "  rent  must  exist,  and  cannot 


*T  quote  from  Chambers's  Encyclopedia,  Art.  "Corn  Laws,"  pub- 
lished fifteen  years  after  their  repeal.  The  italics  are  mine:  "The 
results  of  the  repeal  are  well  known.  Every  evil  prognostication  has 
been  falsified.  Poor  lands  are  as  much  cultivated  as  ever,  and  even 
more  so.  There  has  been  no  stoppage  of  imports  by  war  nor  otherwise, 
nor  are  there  likely  to  be.  .  .  .  Instead  of  falling,  the  re7it  of  land  of  all 
kinds  has  risen,  and  tenants  and  proprietors  are  alike  satisfied.  The 
working  classes  are  better,  instead  of  being  worse  employed." 


UNEARNED   INCREASE — RENT.  73 

be  got  rid  of.  Whoever  lias  land  at  liis  command 
better  than  the  worst  that  is  cultivated,  holds  rent. 
It  is  in  vain,  therefore,  to  think  of  destroying  the 
monopoly  of  land  owners.  It  revives  as  naturally  by 
an  economic,  as  water  finds  its  level  by  a  physical 
law."  It  is  for  this  reason  that  Mr.  George  concludes 
that  the  only  way  to  establish  equity  is  to  confiscate 
or  tax  away  the  rent,  and  thus  secure  to  each  member 
of  a  state  his  just  share  of  the  unearned  increase.  It 
is  urged  that  if  the  land  were  to  be  divided  equally 
to-day,  it  would  immediately  begin  to  accumulate 
again  in  the  hands  of  the  industrious  and  frugal,  and 
so  become  at  length  absorbed  in  a  few  hands,  as  now, 
and  of  course  yield  again  the  same  rent. 

But  such  result  could  not  be  effected  if  land  were 
treated,  not  as  exchangeable  goods,  but  as  a  comple- 
ment to  labor,  as  it  is  in  nature.  The  distinction 
between  it  and  the  increase  of  goods,  relied  on  to 
establisli  tliis  theory,  viz.,  That  while  the  increase 
from  them  "  arises  out  of  the  acts  of  the  holders,  the 
rent  of  land  is  a  fund  that  exists  through  external 
causes,  over  which  the  holder  exercises  no  control," 
proves  that  it  cannot  be  equitably  exchangeable  with 
that  which  requires  activity  in  its  production,  since 
there  can  be  no  equation  between  two  things,  one  of 
which  costs  labor  and  the  other  does  not.  One 
might  as  well  pay  for  any  service  by  giving  the  priv- 
ilege of  breathing  the  air  as  of  using  the  land.  The 
theory  itself  is  therefore  incapable  of  statement,  ex- 
cept in  terms  which  preclude  it  from  exchange,  and 
hence  from  the  realm  of  economics. 

The  inequality  wliicli  Mr.  Cxiiorgc  thiid^s  lie  sees  in 
any  attempt  to  abolish  landlordism,  which,  does  not 


74  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

confiscate  "  economic  rent,"  is  mainly  chimerical,  and 
could  liardly  form  a  serious  difficulty  were  occuj)ancy 
made  the  sole  title  to  land.  With  wider  acreage  of 
an  inferior  quality,  with  more  varied  crops,  and  per- 
chance more  careful  tillage,  these  inequalities  would 
be  greatly  reduced,  if  they  did  not  wholly  disappear. 
There  are  many  compensations  not  apparent  at  first 
glance.  The  man  with  land  of  easier  tillage,  or  more 
productive  soil,  will  be  able,  doubtless,  to  obtain  the 
same  price  for  his  grain  or  fruits  as  the  man  with 
poorer  soil  and  shorter  crops.  Having  more  to  ex- 
change, he  will  purchase  more  luxuries.  This  will 
stimulate  other  industries,  but  will  not  increase  the. 
cost  of  actual  necessaries  to  his  poorer  neighbor. 
Under  "  occupying  ownership,"  moreover,  the  prin- 
ciple of  first  serving  the  first  comer  must  obtain. 
Only  as  population  increased,  and  progress  in  pro- 
duction advanced,  would  the  less  desirable  places 
come  into  request.  The  older  and  feebler  would 
thus  be  usually  in  possession  of  the  more  produc- 
tive, and  the  younger  and  stronger  be  left  to  attack 
the  less  favored  situation. 

The  theory  absurdly  proceeds,  moreover,  ujDon  the 
hypothesis  that  the  best  laud  will  continue  to  pro- 
duce bountifully  from  generation  to  generation. 
Land,  however  fertile,  when  first  taken  up,  will, 
unless  continually  manured,  soon  work  down  to  a 
point  where  it  will  yield  no  more  than  the  same 
quantity  of  manure  will  produce  upon  land  of  ordi- 
nary quality.  It  is  the  opinion  of  tlie  best  writers 
upon  the  subject  of  agriculture  that  it  is  the  culture, 
not  the  soil,  which  determines  the  great  disparities 
in  agricultural  production.     Generally,  then,  produc- 


UNEARNED   INCREASE — RENT.  75 

tiveness  of  the  land  depends  upon  the  labor  applied,  and 
upon  the  return  to  it  of  the  elements  of  fertilitij.  The 
original  disparity  in  regard  to  soils  would  soon 
disappear  under  natural  ajDportionmeut  and  intelli- 
gent use. 

In  dealing  with  the  subject  of  rent,  as  with  interest 
and  profits,  it  is  important  to  distinguish  between 
that  which  is  actual  rent  and  that  which  goes  under 
the  name,  but  is  not  rent  proper.  As  to  profits  are 
nsuall}'  added  services  in  exchange,  and  to  interest 
the  assurance  against  risk,  etc.,  so  to  rent  there  is 
usually  added  insurance,  taxation,  repairs,  and  the 
general  expense  of  keeping  up  the  property ;  actual 
rent,  as  actual  interest  and  actual  profits,  are  pay- 
ments for  that  which  represents  no  service  or  com- 
modity parted  with  by  the  claimant,  and  hence  is  not 
an  exchange  but  a  tribute.  This  distinction  is  so 
readily  drawn  that  it  only  requires  to  be  referred 
to  here. 


CHAPTER  V. 

CONSERVATION   OF   WEALTH. 

Every  person  who  completes  a  truly  rounded  life 
passes  through  two  stages  where  his  powers  of  pro- 
duction do  not  equal  his  necessary  consumption,  and 
a  single,  but  usually  longer  period,  where  they  con- 
siderably exceed  it.  Infancy  and  childhood  have  to 
be  sustained  by  the  product  of  the  labor  of  others. 
And  the  early  education  is  generally  a  gratuity  to 
the  youth.  Again,  in  old  age,  and  in  the  decay  of 
the  physical  and  mental  energies,  support  must  come 
from  other  than  one's  own  exertions  at  that  period. 
The  period  embracing  early  and  mature  manhood, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  usually  accompanied  by  strength 
of  brain  and  brawn,  to  enable  the  man  to  produce 
more  than  he  is  under  any  necessity  of  steadily  con- 
suming. Taken  in  connection  with  the  fact  that  all 
forms  of  wealth  constantly  decay,  though  some  with 
much  greater  rapidity  than  others,  there  arises  an 
inflexible  necessity  that  some  method  of  conserva- 
tion should  be  found  which  would  enable  the  pro- 
ducer to  store  up  in  a  durable  form  the  values  which 
he  has  created,  but  which  will  soon  disappear,  un- 
less so  conserved.  In  consequence  of  the  nearly  in- 
destructible nature  of  gems  and  the  precious  metals, 
and  because  they  possess  attractions  for  the  barbaric 
mind  as  ornaments  and  charms,  these,  at  an  early 

76 


CONSERVATION   OF  WEALTH.  77 

period,  became  the  great  agents  of  conservation. 
Flocks  and  lierds,  from  their  power  to  grow  and  mul- 
tiply, also  became  sought  for  to  this  end,  as  well  as 
for  their  power,  in  connection  with  dominion  of  the 
land,  to  yield  a  ready  increase. 

The  only  way  in  which  the  man  usually  can  repay 
the  cost  of  his  early  support  and  education  is  by 
pro\4ding  for  the  support  and  education  of  his  own 
offspring,  though  often  he  makes  direct  return  in  the 
care  and  supiaort  of  parents.  But  this  requires  ac- 
cumulation and  conservation,  which  means  accumu- 
lation in  a  form  to  retain  its  value  undiminished  as 
nearly  as  may  be.  There  is,  therefore,  abundant 
motive  to  accumulation  in  active  life,  if  all  thoughts 
of  increase  without  labor  were  eliminated.  And  when 
is  added  the  desire  to  provide  our  old  age  with  comfort 
and  ample  support,  there  arises  a  demand  for  such 
forms  of  value  as  will  give  guaranties  of  unvarying 
stability.  The  agriculturist  will  find,  in  the  planting 
of  fruit-treei^,  a  sure  means  of  storing  and  conserving 
the  products  of  his  manhood's  labors ;  in  such  form, 
too,  as  can  be  readily  combined  with  the  lighter 
subsequent  labor  required  to  care  for  them  and 
gather  the  fruit.  A  great  variety  of  forms  might  be 
given  in  illustration,  but  this  must  suffice.  The  laws 
of  equitable  division  or  exchange  will  thus  repay  the 
abstinence  of  the  frugal,  not  with  increase,  but  with 
compensation  for  the  labors  performed,  but  not  before 
completely  satisfied. 

Of  all  pretexts  for  the  justification  of  increase 
without  labor,  that  of  lime  is  tho  most  flimsy  and 
groundless,  and  if  it  were  not  associated  with  the 
idea  that  capital  is,  in  some  sense,  labor  or  the  pro- 


78  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

duct  of  labor,  it  could  not  be  made  to  assume  the 
least  plausibilit}^  But  we  shall  see  how  little  inves- 
tigation it  will  bear.  The  man  who  has  labored  and 
received  the  natural  wages  of  his  toil,  finding  them 
subject  to  perish  more  or  less  rapidly,  turns  them 
into  some  form  less  perishable ;  the  main  and  nor- 
mal motive  being  to  save  their  value  from  its  ordi- 
nary tendency  to  decrease.  That  they  are  converted 
to  this  use,  and  so  conserved,  instead  of  being  con- 
sumed productively,  is  proof  that  the  holder  is  unable 
or  unwilling  thus  to  consume  them,  and  prefers  a 
stable  value  to  a  changing  one.  Without  intending 
to  introduce  any  discussion  here  as  to  the  nature 
and  functions  of  money,  I  may  say  that  it  is  a  me- 
dium provided  by  society,  one  of  the  uses,  if  not 
purposes,  of  which  is  the  conservation  of  wealth  to 
the  producer.  And  this  it  effects  well  or  ill,  accord- 
ing to  the  wisdom  displayed  in  its  creation  and  the 
regulations  which  determine  its  character.  But 
whatever  else  may  be  claimed  as  the  powers  of 
money,  it  will  not  be  pretended  that  it  has  any  power 
of  increase.  In  placing  his  wealth  in  this  form 
(when  done  for  conservation,  and  not  for  convenience 
of  exchange),  the  owner  indubitably  elects  to  put 
his  property  into  to  that  from  which  no  increase  to 
it  can  be  added  but  by  joining  it  to  other  labor. 
He  elects  to  treat  his  property,  while  in  this  form,  as 
though  it  were  the  wages  of  labor  just  completed.  It  will 
make  little  difference,  indeed,  what  the  particular 
form  of  wealth  in  which  the  value  of  his  labor  is 
stored.  The  utmost  that  the  social  comity  can  secure 
to  him  is  the  undiminished  value  of  production. 
Unless  most  wisely  converted  by  him,  and  most  in- 


CONSEKVATION   OF  WEALTH.  79 

telligently  as  well  as  equitabh'  guarded  by  society, 
it  cannot  keep  wliole  the  value  of  the  labor  lie  be- 
stowed. Only  when  the  jDroduction  be  converted 
into  cash,  or  some  more  durable  form,  or  has  been 
consumed  productively,  can  society  return  to  him 
"  measure  for  measure,"  without  suffering  loss.  His 
labor,  then  wrapped  up  in  the  new  production,  must 
have  been  but  a  trifle  in  time  antecedent  with  the 
later  labor,  which  rehabilitated  it  in  a  new  commod- 
ity. But  the  labor  doing  this  should  share  the 
entire  result  minus  the  amount  of  labor  concreted  in 
the  things  consumed,  and  no  more  could  be  returned 
than  had  been  received,  without  robbing  the  later 
worker  of  a  part  of  his  natural  wages. 

If  it  be  asked  whether  accepting  the  contribution 
of  the  holder  of  past  labor-pledges  or  tokens,  and 
performing  a  certain  number  of  days'  work,  the  out- 
come of  this  work  may  not  yield  an  increase  over  the 
values  of  the  labor  taken  as  a  whole,  the  reply  is, 
that  under  a  system  of  mono^ioly  and  tax  to  capital 
sucli  a  thing  might  well  happen,  but  even  then  the 
increase  awarded  to  the  employed  capital  is  usually 
^  taken  from  the  wages  of  the  employed  labor,  and  not 
because  the  union  of  the  past  with  present  labor  has 
made  the  present  labor  more  productive.  That  union 
of  labor,  as  well  as  division  of  labor  (which,  in  the 
sphere  of  a  healthy  exchange,  are  branches  of  the 
same  thing — co-operation),  aids  production,  is  not 
denied.  That  by  the  use  of  conserved  wealth  we  can 
co-operate  witli  past  labor,  may  be  admitted,  but  to 
return  to  tliat  past  labor  more  than  value  for  value 
involves  the  self-contradictory  assumption  that 
the  past  labor  is  more  valuable  than  present  labor, 


80  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

although  at  the  same  time  admitting  that  we  use  it 
only  as  present  labor  when  we  join  it  to  present 
labor.  But  to  make  the  thing  more  plain,  let  us 
suppose  our  unit  of  value  to  be  a  day's  work.  It 
will  be  asked,  if  two  parties  contribute  the  same 
number  of  days'  work  of  the  same  degree  of  effi- 
ciency, why  should  they  not  receive  the  same  com- 
pensation? Undoubtedly  they  should.  Then  it 
would  seem  to  follow  that  the  owner  of  the  hundred 
days'  labor,  contributed  by  the  holder  or  conservator 
of  labor,  should  share  equally  with  the  present 
worker,  who  immediately  contributed  his  hundred 
days'  labor  in  producing  the  new  material.  The 
total  production  is  now  the  wages  of  the  two  hun- 
dred days'  labor,  of  which  each  will  be  entitled  to 
an  equal  share.  Before  any  deduction  can  be  drawn 
from  this  to  favor  the  claim  of  increase,  however,  it 
must  be  shown  that  the  result  is  more  than  the  wages 
of  two  hundred  days'  labor,  which  is  an  absurdity. 
It  is  vastly  easy  to  conceive  of  circumstances  which 
would  make  the  joint  product  considerably  more  or 
considerably  less  than  the  usual  product,  or  the  pro- 
duct which  the  present  worker  would  be  able  to 
produce  by  his  individual  labor  continued  for  two 
hundred  days ;  but  to  admit  the  principle  of  increase 
anywhere  is  to  abandon  the  fundamental  proposition 
that  the  whole  product  of  labor  is  the  natural  wages 
of  labor,  and  admit  that  society  may  not  only  guar- 
antee the  conserved  values  of  wealth,  but  an  increase 
upon  them,  although  all  forms  of  wealth  constantly 
decrease,  and  require  constant  care  and  risk  in  their 
conservation.  The  only  question  which  can  arise  in 
equity,  it  seems  to  me,  would  be  whether  the  past  or 


CONSEEVATION  OF  WEALTH.  81 

tlie  present  labor  sliould  pay  the  cost  of  the  guaranty, 
or  whether  it  shoukl  be  borne  between  them  ;  and  if 
so,  in  what  proportion.  If  any  question  of  risk  or 
hazard  arises,  it  is  doubtless  right  that  the  one  taking 
the  risk  of  loss  should  take  the  surplus  product,  if 
there  should  prove  to  be  one ;  and  if  both  shared  the 
risk,  both  should  share  the  advantage.  The  whole 
question  of  increase  is  narrowed  down,  then,  to  these 
dimensions,  but  really  it  originates  in  a  wholly  dif- 
ferent way,  and  rests  upon  a  wholly  different  basis. 
The  natural  issue  between  the  demand  for  conserved 
labor  to  combine  with  and  aid  present  labor  in  pro- 
duction, and  the  demand  for  present  labor  to  con- 
serve and  transmit  to  the  future  the  present  values 
of  past  labor  products,  has  never  been  allowed  any 
fair  play  by  the  laws  and  customs  engendered  in 
ignorance  and  greed,  and  never  can  be  while  fraud- 
ulent titles  are  sustained  by  public  law,  or  while  the 
land  and  all  means  and  opportunities  of  production 
remain  under  the  dominion  of  monopol}-.  In  the 
absence  of  usurped  rights,  which  are  exercised  under 
the  laws  and  customs  uj^holding  capitalism,  it  can 
hardly  be  doubted  that  these  mutual  demands  would 
tend  to  equilibrium,  or  complete  reciprocation. 

If  rent,  interest,  or  profit  lias  any  rational  or  eco- 
nomic excuse  for  being,  it  must  rest  on  a  ground 
wholly  different  from  that  assigned  by  any  writer  on 
economics,  viz.,  upon  the  necessity,  real  or  imagi- 
nary, of  some  to  borrow  of  others — lands  or  products. 
13ut  the  necessity  to  borrow  laud  is  wholly  due  to 
the  unequal  and  exclusive  ownership  of  the  land,  and 
any  rent,  interest,  or  profits  (different  names  merely 
for  increase)  is  clearly  the  fruit  of  usurpation,  and 


82  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

not  of  any  economic  law.  That  sucli  exclusive  owner- 
ship also  creates  the  only  real  necessity  for  borrow- 
ing goods,  seems  too  plain  to  require  argument.  But 
that  question  may  safely  be  deferred  to  the  time 
when  commercial  monopoly  of  land  shall  be  abol- 
ished, and  the  normal  economics  and  industrial  laws 
be  allowed  to  assert  themselves,  uuinterfered  with 
by  municipal  enactments.  If  the  right  of  unearned 
increase  is  truly  an  economic  principle,  and  it  is 
made  the  sole  one  by  the  later  economists,  then  in 
the  absence  of  fostering  legislation  it  will  be  all  the 
more  likely  to  make  its  claim  good,  and  an  oppor- 
tunity will  be  had  to  obtain  exact  data  as  to  its 
operation.  What  is  so  manifestly  unscientific,  as 
well  as  unfair,  is  to  treat  that  as  a  normal  result  of 
economic  law  which  is  due  mainly  to  the  direct  in- 
terference of  the  civil  law,  and  could  not  exist  with- 
out it. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

TOOLS  JCsB   IMPROVED   MACHINERY. 

Notwithstanding  tlie  general  admission  that  labor 
alone  creates  wealth,  it  is  thought  that  it  may  be 
greatly  assisted  by  the  use  of  new  and  improved  im- 
plements and  methods.  It  is  quite  evident  that  the 
savage  could  do  little  in  felling  trees  and  working 
them  into  forms  of  use,  with  the  stone  ax,  once  used. 
A  man  with  a  fine  steel  ax  could,  doubtless,  do  more 
in  one  day  well  than  the  savage  could  do  in  a  hun- 
dred days  very  imperfectly.  Is  not  the  ax,  there- 
fore, productive,  and  as  such  become  a  factor?  and 
should  not  the  owner  of  the  ax,  if  he  permit  his  less 
fortunate  neighbor  to  use  it,  be  entitled  to  a  share  of 
the  increased  production?  It  is  best  to  consider 
what  does  result,  and  the  cause  of  it,  rather  than 
what  ouglit  to  be. 

Now,  in  the  case  supposed,  if  the  man  who  pos- 
sessed the  new  ax  had  a  patent  right  on  it  by  which 
the  use  of  any  but  stone  axes  was  prohibited  to  all 
others,  lie  would,  doubtless,  be  able  to  derive  an 
income  from  selling  the  use  of  his  ax,  and  others  like 
it  li<!  luiglit  get  manufactured.  But  a  patent  to  the 
land  on  wliifli  the  trees  grew  that  were  to  be  cut 
with  tl;o  ax,  would  be  just  as  effectual.  To  arrive  at 
any  exact  conception,  however,  of  the  nature  of  im- 
provements as  entering  into  industrial  production. 

68 


84  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

both  of  tliese  patent  rights,  having  no  foundation  in 
nature,  but  only  the  sanction  of  class  legislation  and 
the  crude  and  outgrown  customs  of  unscientific  pe- 
riods, must  be  eliminated.  Under  equal  opportu- 
nity and  reciprocal  interchange  of  service,  the  benefit 
of  improvements  could  not  fail  of  being  generally 
enjoyed.  Inventions  do  not  spring  up  without  cause 
and  impose  themselves  upon  mankind.  The  whole 
procession  of  improvements  is  a  growth,  called  forth 
by  the  social  and  industrial  life  of  a  j)eople,  and  not 
by  the  creative  act  of  a  single  mind.  The  ax  itself, 
in  its  present  eflfective  form,  has  grown  from  the  stone 
ax,  or  something  still  more  rude,  by  minute  degrees. 
Tlie  inventor  of  a  neiv  machine  merely  introduces  a 
new  manufactiire.  As  soon  as  its  utility  is  discovered, 
a  separate  industry  will  grow  up,  and  their  produc- 
tion will  be  governed  by  supply  and  demand,  the 
same  as  of  all  other  productions,  so  that  the  -work- 
man, as  now  with  the  ax,  will  only  have  to  give  a 
daj-'s  labor  for  one,  and  thereafter  will  be  able  to 
compete  with  the  best.  The  pwner  of  the  new  ax 
does  not  compete  with  the  owner  of  the  stone  ax, 
but  with  one  -who  has  or  may  have  one  every  way  as 
good  as  his  own.  It  is  thus  seen  that  all  benefits 
arising  from  improvements  are  social  benefits  even 
as  they  are  the  result  of  the  social  growth.  No 
sooner  does  a  new  useful  machine  appear  than 
workers  are  ready  to  work  at  its  production  at  same 
compensation  as  they  obtain  in  other  employments. 
Only  the  monopoly  of  conferred  privilege,  which 
denies  the  rights  of  others  to  do,  enables  one  to 
realize  a  fortune  without  labor  by  a  royalty  tax  on 
the  public. 


TOOLS  AND   LMPROVED   MACHINERY.  85 

I  am  not  now  arguing  against  a  method  of  com- 
pensation for  the  time  and  sacrifice  employed  by  an 
inventor  ;  but  only  against  the  unequal  method  by 
which  it  is  now  attempted  through  jjatent  laws. 
Usually,  a  party  will  find  sufficient  inducement  and 
compensation,  in  introducing  a  new  thing  to  the 
public,  by  the  start  he  will  have  of  competitors,  and 
by  the  extended  reputation  it  will  give  to  his  busi- 
ness. But  it  is  not  my  purpose  to  enter  into  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  propriety  of  patent  laws,  except  so  far 
as  they  confer  a  power  to  prevent  competition  and 
interfere  with  the  natural  law  of  supply  and  demand. 
But  for  the  state  of  society  and  of  industry,  which 
makes  his  invention  available,  it  would  be  of  no  use 
to  him,  and  without  the  presence  of  workers,  whom 
his  monopoly  does  not  remove  from  the  influence  of 
competition,  he  would  be  unable  to  supply  any  con- 
siderable demand  for  it.  Of  the  millions  that  are 
paid  to  patent  monopolies  by  the  public  the  pro- 
ducers of  the  patented  articles  get  nothing,  as  it  is 
well  known  that  such  employers  seldom  pay  higher 
than  the  market  rate  of  wages.  It  is  this  trick  of 
capitalism,  of  subjecting  labor  to  competition,  while 
lifted  wholly  above  it  by  class  law  itself,  that  is  ob- 
jectionable. That  the  public  are  willing  to  compen- 
sate the  inventor  is  shown  by  their  submission  to 
such  unequal  laws  ;  but,  as  a  rule,  the  inventor  is 
merely  the  stool-pigeon  of  capitalism,  who  is  sacri- 
ficed or  apotheosized,  accordingly  as  either  can  serve 
its  purpose  of  making  unearned  gains  and  extending 
the  base  of  its  profit-bearing  stock. 

The  idea  of  a  natural  exclusive  right  in  invention 
or  in  the  publishing  of  books  is  absurd.     If  there  is 


86  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

one,  wliy  our  patent  and  copyright  laws  ?  Why  not 
defend  the  right  at  common  law  or  by  general  con- 
sent ?  Because  a  man  utters  a  new  word,  or  coins  a 
new  phrase,  is  that  his  property  which  no  one  may 
repeat  ?  If  we  may  not  be  prevented  from  reiter- 
ating it,  why  from  rewriting  it  or  reprinting  it  ?  Be- 
cause a  man  builds  a  house  to  shelter  himself  and 
family,  shall  all  mankind  be  compelled  to  dwell  in 
caves  to  the  end  of  time  ?  or  pay  him  and  his  de- 
scendants a  royalty  or  kingly  tribute?  Doubtless, 
society  will  feel  under  obligation  to  one  who  has 
invented  a  useful  thing  or  written  an  instructive  or 
entertaining  book.  And  the  man  who  has  conceived 
or  perfected  either  of  these  has  the  power  of  property 
over  it,  while  he  keeps  it  private  or  secret,  and  will 
usually  find  means  to  secure  an  advantage  from  it 
before  making  it  public  property,  as  Daguerre  did 
with  his  beautiful  invention.  Society,  too,  may  take 
lawful  methods  of  awarding  services  of  that  kind ; 
but  to  create  a  monopoly  is  not  one  of  them.  For 
books  and  inventions  a  premium  might  be  allowed 
for  a  given  time  ;  but  not  to  interfere  with  the  free- 
dom of  manufacture  and  sale  by  all  who  would  re- 
spect the  right. 

But  industry  has  no  patent  device  for  obtaining 
wealth,  and  the  legal  privilege  bestowed  on  those  who 
usurp  dominion  of  the  land  or  obtain  the  right  to 
prohibit  Avork  like  that  which  they  have  been  incited 
to  do  by  the  education  and  means  they  have  derived 
from  ages  of  toil  and  experience  of  others,  is  not  in 
the  social  interest,  but  opposed  to  and  destructive 
of  it.  Industry  has  no  secrets  which  would  debar 
the  willing  toiler  from  following  any  method  or  pro- 


TOOLS  AND  IMPROVED  MACHINERY.         87 

cess  found  to  be  adyantageous.     In  agriculture,  par- 
ties vie  with   each  other   in  communicating  useful 
knowledge,  and  form  clubs  for  the  purpose  of  making 
known  improved  methods.      A   new  comer   in  any 
section  of  our  country  will  have  abundance  of  good 
advice  tendered  him,  so  that,  at  times,  it  may  become 
embarrassing.     Only  when  knowledge  becomes  em- 
bodied in  some  art  or  handicraft  is  it  in  form  to  be 
monopolized,  and  then,  even,  it  often  parts  "  for  a 
song  "  with  meritorious  discoveries  or  inventions  to 
the  "lying-in-wait"  capitalism,   which   captures   it, 
and  from  it,  perchance,  builds  up  a  fortune.      Our 
progress  in  science  and  industry  is  in  no  way  due  to 
capitalism  or  any  motive  consistent  with  its  sway. 
On  the  contrary,  these  have  flourished  most  where 
there  was  the  greatest  freedom.      Certain  features  of 
the  arts  may  be  affected  or  promoted  by  capitalistic 
patronage  and  favor,  but  not  so  with  science.     Not 
the  patent  or  copyright  laws  have  produced  the  most 
useful  inventions  or  discoveries.     The  love  of  science, 
love  of  art,  love  of  truth,  love  of  discovering  it  in 
mechanics  and  in  the  physical  sciences,  have  done 
all  that  is  worthv  our   consideration.     Love  of  gain 
has  operated  to  distract  rather   than  foster   useful 
discovery.     In  those  few  instances  where  merit  has 
apparently  reaped  a  rich  reward  under  its  methods, 
it  has  operated  often  to  exclude  other  cognate  im- 
provements, which  would  have  been  made  and  put 
to  use  but  for  the  exclusive  right  bestowed  upon  one 
perhaps  no  more  worthy  than  the  others.     The  most 
useful  inventions  are  those  whose  real  discovers  are 
not  even  known.     Indeed  they  are  growths  rather 
than  inventions.     And  "  learning  hath  gained  m.ost 


88  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

by  those  books  bywliicli  the  printers  have  lost,"  and 
which  have  yielded  no  royalty  to  their  authors. 
Patent  right,  under  monopoly,  has  led  to  more  per- 
nicious than  serviceable  results,  and  copyright  has 
fostered  the  growth  of  ephemeral  rather  than  useful 
literature.  An  invention  which  has  realized  the 
patentee  more  than  Jialf  a  million,  to  my  personal 
knowledge,  was  never  put  into  a  practical  shape  by 
him,  yet  he  had  his  monopoly  continued  for  twenty- 
eight  years  and  then  repatented  it  under  another 
name.  Not  until  the  expiration  of  his  monopoly  was 
any  marked  improvement  made  in  that  line,  and  a 
very  inferior  product  was  furnished  the  public  until 
it  was  improved  by  parties  not  working  under  the 
patent. 

The  daguerreotype  is  another  case  in  point.  The 
discoverer  was  unwilling  that  liis  great  invention 
should  be  made  a  monopoly  by  a  few,  and  thus  shut 
out  improvement.  He  desired  that  the  world  should 
have  the  benefit,  though  he  naturally  wished  to  be 
paid  for  his  services  in  completing  the  discovery. 
He  found  a  means  to  efi^ect  both  of  these  desires. 
The  French  government  purchased  his  secret,  and 
shares  the  glory  of  having  given  so  important  an 
invention  to  the  world.  But,  notwithstanding  this, 
it  was  patented  in  England,  and  the  result  is  what 
might  have  been  expected — English  pictures  con- 
tinued far  below  the  standard  of  excellence  of  those 
taken  by  the  artists  of  other  nations,  particularly  the 
American.  Mr.  Snelling  (Art  of  Photography,  1850), 
says :  "  I  have  seen  some  medium  portraits  for 
which  a  guinea  had  been  paid,  and  taken,  too,  by  a 
celebrated  artist,  that  our  poorest  daguerreotypists 


TOOLS   AXD   IMPRO^T^D   MACHINERY.  89 

would  be  ashamed  to  sliow  to  a  second  person,  mucli 
less  suffer  to  leave  their  rooms."  He  also  says : 
"  Calotvpe  is  precisel}^  in  the  same  predicament  both 
in  England  and  the  United  States,"  Mr.  Talbot  hav- 
ing taken  out  patents  in  both  countries.  He  de- 
scribes the  pictures  made  under  patent  as  far  in- 
ferior to  those  made  at  the  same  time  in  Germany 
where  no  patent  existed. 

In  the  introduction  of  new  varieties  of  fruits, 
cereals,  or  vegetables,  which  may  be  classed  with 
useful  inventions,  various  methods  are  adopted  to 
retain  a  monopoly ;  but  without  the  interference  of 
the  law,  it  can  have  but  a  short  life,  and  work  no 
great  injustice  like  those  protected  by  statute.  I 
call  to  mind,  in  horticulture,  two  instances  illustra- 
tive of  the  principle  to  show  that  not  that  service 
which  has  been  best  paid  has  proved  most  service- 
able to  society,  but  the  reverse  :  Dr.  Grant  intro- 
duced the  lona  grape,  and  made  a  moderate  fortune 
out  of  it.  It  proved  wholly  worthless  as  an  invest- 
ment to  the  purchasers,  though  it  was  a  grape  of 
fine  quality.  The  thousands  he  realized  from  it  may 
be  said  to  have  been  a  dead  loss  to  grape  growers. 
Horace  Greeley,  through  offering  a  prize  of  a  thou- 
sand dollars,  brought  out  the  Concord  grape,  and, 
indeed,  a  number  of  other  varieties,  through  the 
emulation  it  stimulated,  by  which  every  grape  grower 
in  the  country  has  been  benefited. 

The  objection,  that  without  patent  or  copyright 
laws  no  one  would  engage  in  making  inventions  or 
publisliiiig  books,  indicates  that  as  our  legislators 
act  largely  in  the  interest  of  capitalism,  they  liave 
little  care  for   the  author   en-   inventor,  any  farther 


90  SOCIAL   WEALTH. 

tlian  as  tliey  can  be  made  subservient  to  capitalistic 
enterprise  and  speculation.  And  this  is  true ;  our 
copyright  and  patent  laws  are  shaped  mainly  to 
enable  capitalistic  control  to  manage  the  affairs  of 
publishing  and  of  the  manufacture  and  use  of  pat- 
ented articles  or  machines.  The  interest  manifested 
in  the  rights  of  authorship  and  of  invention  is  too 
flimsy  a  pretense  to  deceive  any  but  those  who  court 
deception. 

There  is,  however,  at  the  utmost  no  power  in  in- 
vention or  authorship,  to  beget  wealth  to  the  indi- 
vidual or  to  society  without  the  constant  co-operation 
of  society  and  of  the  individual  worker.  The  author 
cannot  exchange  his  literary  wares,  nor  the  inventor 
even  obtain  the  manufacture  of  his  machine,  much 
less  its  sale  and  use,  without  dealing  with  or  employ- 
ing others  ivho  have  no  exclusive  rights,  but  have  to 
compete  with  the  many  unprivileged,  and  whom  the 
use  of  the  new  machine  even,  or  reading  of  the  new 
books,  does  not  relieve  from  competition,  but  tem- 
porarily, if  at  all.  The  prejudice  of  the  workers 
against  the  introduction  of  machinery  deemed  so 
obtuse  and  irrational  by  writers  on  political  econ- 
omy, is  based,  doubtless,  upon  the  conviction  that 
improved  machines,  tools,  etc.,  are  productive,  and 
enable  the  controllers  of  wealth  to  dispense  with  so 
much  labor  as  its  increased  productiveness  repre- 
sents. It  is  the  stolidity  of  their  own  teachings, 
then,  which  needs  to  be  corrected,  not  the  blind  in- 
stinct of  the  embruted  workers,  which  has  taken 
them  at  their  word.  Surely  the  man  with  the  stone 
ax,  who  by  its  use  barely  subsists,  is  justified  in 
attempting  to  exclude  the  steel  ax  from  the  work, 


TOOLS  AND  IMPROVED  MACHINEEY.         91 

since  it  will  reduce  the  necessity  for  liis  labor  by  a 
hundred  fold,  and  therefore  means  a  fiercer  competi- 
tion and  struggle  for  existence,  even  if  he  is  able  in 
any  way  to  obtain  possession  of  a  steel  one.  But  if 
he  is  mistaken,  as  it  ma}^  be  admitted,  were  o]3por- 
tunity  not  engrossed  by  monopoly,  then  is  their  ^ 
teaching  false,  and  more  rapid  production  does  not 
beget  disproportioned  compensation,  because  the  in- 
creased production  in  the  gross  is  balanced  by  the 
reduced  ratio  in  exchange  with  the  products  of  other 
kinds  of  labor,  the  same  as  where  cheapness  of  food 
is  caused  by  an  unusually  productive  season,  and 
which  often  rewards  the  producer  less  than  the 
scanty  yield  of  a  less  productive  one. 

If  the  price  of  machine-made  boots  and  shoes 
were  to  remain  the  same  as  hand-made,  then  society 
would  have  no  interest  in  the  question,  and  certainly 
no  justification  for  granting  privilege  to  the  intro- 
duction of  the  machine-made  work.  Only  the  owners 
of  the  machines  would  be  benefited  or  interested. 
But  it  is  because  the  machine  furnishes  them  cheaper 
than  they  could  be  made  in  the  old  way  that  the 
many  become  interested  in  its  success  and  recon- 
ciled to  the  crowding  of  labor  out  of  the  old  industry, 
to  be  reabsorbed  into  the  general  industries  or  to 
create  new  ones. 

To  make  good  the  popular  fallacy  that  machinery 
and  tools  are  productive  in  the  sense  that  labor  is 
productive,  it  would  be  necessary  to  find  them  of 
such  material  as  never  wears  out,  and  of  a  construc- 
tion whicli  would  o])orate  without  power,  involving 
perpetual  moti(Ui.  Even  tlion,  since  labor  could 
construct  them,  they  would  be  open  to  its  acquisi- 


92  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

tion,  because  labor,  with  access  to  land,  can  produce 
all  things,  and  thus  in  time  all  men  could  live  with- 
out work,  and  j^roduction  would  become  so  universal 
as  to  be  of  no  value  or  interest  to  anyone.  Wealth, 
or  that  which  we  now  call  so,  would  be  as  the  waters 
of  the  ocean,  or  the  sands  of  its  shores.  Farms 
would  produce  without  labor;  factories  would  run 
without  hands,  and  materials  would  convey  them- 
selves to  the  factories  to  be  manufactured,  with 
motive  power  of  their  own. 

To  say  that  a  man  can  do  more  with  suitable  tools 
than  without,  is  merely  saying  that  he  can  do  more 
work,  or  produce  more  goods  in  six  days  than  he  can 
in  five,  for  if  the  consumption  of  his  tools  represents 
the  labor  of  one  day  in  sis,  or  any  definite  propor- 
tion, it  is  evident  he  must  give  that  proportion  of 
labor  in  every  six  employed  in  the  procurement  of 
goods,  to  providing  himself  with  tools.  That  is  all. 
It  is  true  that  under  division  of  labor  the  particular 
person  may  not  be  able  of  himself  to  make  the  tools 
required  by  him,  but  under  such  division  he  is  able 
to  do  some  other  thing  with  greater  facility  than  the 
man  who  makes  the  tools,  and  consequently,  since 
he  procures  an  equivalent  for  them,  he  really  pro- 
duces them  by  his  labor  as  much  as  if  he  wrought  at 
that  particular  trade.  If  one  day's  worth  of  tools 
are  consumed  in  five  days'  labor  in  producing  goods, 
then  the  goods  are  the  jiroduct  not  of  five,  but  of  six 
days'  labor,  and  of  no  tool  or  machine,  in  any  eco- 
nomic sense.  To  say  that  the  day's  work  spent  in 
procuring  tools  is  of  more  value  than  either  of  the 
five  days'  work  in  procuring  goods  with  them,  is 
nonsense,  since  the  procuring  of  the  goods  is  the 


TOOLS  AND  IMPROTED  MACHINEEY.        03 

purpose  of  the  one  as  well  as  of  the  other.  The 
same  is  true  of  all  preliminary  steps  in  any  produc- 
tion. The  tools, 'the  procurement  of  raw  materials, 
the  consumption  of  other  goods  required,  and  every 
expense  requisite  is  equally  important,  and  equally 
the  product  of  labor  as  well  as  the  finally  resulting 
product.  In  tools,  machinery,  plant,  materials,  con- 
veniences, and  accessories,  there  is  nothing  but  labor 
or  its  product.  To  draw  a  distinction  anywhere,  and 
say  this  is  capital,  and  this  is  labor,  is  a  "  distinction 
without  a  difference."  It  is  as  unscientific  as  the 
purpose  for  which  it  is  attempted  is  iniquitous  and 
oppressive. 

A  blacksmith,  for  instance,  called  upon  to  do  a  job 
out  of  his  usual  line,  and  for  which  he  has  no  appro- 
priate tool,  will  proceed  to  make  the  necessary  tool, 
and  then  perform  the  work.  He  will  of  course 
charge  for  his  labor  and  material,  both  of  the  tool 
and  of  the  thing  made.  If,  however,  the  tool  be  one 
which  he  may  need  again,  and  is  likely  to  prove 
serviceable  in  his  business,  he  will  make  little  or  no 
charge  for  the  use  of  it  more  than  its  proportionate 
consumption.  That  he  would  not  be  able  to  do  it  at 
all  without  the  tool  is  no  reason  why  he  should 
charge  more  than  tlie  labor  and  material  employed 
in  its  construction,  or  why  the  hardware  merchant, 
if  it  is  a  tool  he  can  readil}^  buy,  should  charge  him 
more  than  he  charges  others,  who  are  under  no  im- 
mediate necessity  to  obtain  one.  For  the  price  of 
things  on  sale  is  governed  hy  the  general  demand,  not  by 
the  private  necessity,  and  if  competition  were  free  the 
smith  could  not  make  a  ])rofit  out  of  tlio  use  of  liis 
tools  any  more  than  the  ditcher  could  make  a  j)rofit 


94  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

out  of  the  use  of  his  pick  and  shovel,  because  he 
could  do  so  much  more  with  them  in  his  calling  than 
he  could  with  his  naked  hands.  He  has  to  compete, 
not  with  men  with  naked  hands,  but  with  men  with 
as  good  tools  as  he  himself  has,  which  they  are  able 
to  furnish  themselves  with,  or  have  furnished  them 
by  those  who  need  their  services. 

The  same  principles  apply  to  the  use  of  liorses 
and  cattle.  A  man  can  do  vastly  more  with  a  horse 
and  plow  than  he  can  with  a  hoe  in  raising  a  crop 
of  vegetables ;  but  he  does  not  compete  with  the  man 
who  has  nothing  but  a  hoe  to  work  with,  but  with 
a  man  whose  horse  and  plow  are  as  good  as  his. 
The  man  with  the  hoe  alone  is  also  needed  to  com- 
plete what  the  plow  cannot  finish,  and  to  work  in 
places  where  the  plow  or  horse  cannot  be  used. 
Otherwise  there  would  be  an  over-production  of 
horses  and  plows,  and  their  wages  would  be  re- 
duced to  a  minimum,  and  of  course  all  profit  in  their 
use  would  come  to  an  end,  and  further  investment  in 
that  line  would  prove  a  loss,  not  a  gain, 

Bastiat's  instance  of  the  plane  of  James  borrowed 
by  William,  rendered  famous  by  Euskin's  "  position 
of  William."  and  by  George's  criticisms,  is  a  very 
subtle  attempt  to  prove  that  took  are  capital.  It  is 
singular  that  neither  Bastiat  nor  either  of  his  talented 
critics  thought  it  necessary  to  inquire  whether  the 
supposed  case  had  any  relation  to  custom.  With 
more  than  a  half  centurj-'s  experience  in  active  life, 
in  which  I  have  wrought  in  a  number  of  productive 
fields,  I  do  not  remember  of  any  worker  paying  for 
the  use  of  a  borrowed  tool,  though  nothing  is  more 
common  than  such  courtesies  among  laborers,  me- 


TOOLS  AND  IMPROVED  MACHINERY.         95 

clianics,  artisans,  and  agriculturists.  The  rule  is  the 
reverse  of  this.  Among  farmers,  tools  loaned  are  not 
only  loaned  without  usury,  but  without  compensa- 
tion for  actual  wear  and  tear,  and  the  owners  deem 
themselves  fortunate  to  have  them  promptly  re- 
turned, uninjured  but  by  reasonable  deterioration. 
So  much  for  the  reiterated  platitude  that  "  nothing 
will  be  loaned,  and  no  accommodation  will  be  granted 
without  profit"  or  appeal  to  a  selfish  greed,  which 
only  seeks  personal  gain,  never  social  good. 

I  remember  when  the  first  railroad  was  built  in 
this  country.  A  serious  apprehension  was  felt  among 
farmers  accustomed  to  raise  horses,  that  the  disuse 
of  horses  in  the  long  lines  of  stages  then  required 
for  the  transportation  of  passengers  and  freight, 
would  render  the  horse  valueless.  As  is  well  known, 
however,  the  introduction  of  railroads  has  increased, 
rather  than  diminished,  the  demand  for  horses. 

At  one  time  it  was  thought  that  the  sewing  ma~ 
chine  would  ruin  the  business  of  the  seamstress ;  but 
I  am  informed  that,  on  the  contrary,  it  has  so  increased 
the  demand  for  elaborate  work  on  ladies'  dresses  that 
more  time  is  required  to  make  the  average  dress  now 
than  at  any  time  before  the  introduction  of  the 
machine. 


CHAPTEE  VII. 

THE    NATURE    OF    WAGES. 

Wages,  and  tlie  fund  applied  to  tliat  purpose,  were 
subjects  of  much  consideration  by  the  earlier  school 
of  economists.  But  the  later  school  attach  little, 
if  any,  importance  to  the  question,  but  look  at  every 
subject  as  a  matter  of  exchange  merely.  Mr.  George, 
in  attacking  the  theory  of  the  "  wages  fund,"  there- 
fore, revives  a  discussion  which  is  certainly  becoming 
obsolete.  There  are  still  those,  however,  who  think 
that  the  theory  gives  countenance  to  the  popular 
fallacy  that  capital  employs  labor  and  therefore  is 
entitled  to  a  share  of  its  earnings.  Mr.  W.  H.  Mal- 
lock  has  attacked,  with  a  great  deal  of  vigor,  Mr. 
George's  exposure  of  the  erroneous  teachings  of  the 
elder  school  of  writers. 

It  does  not  seem  to  me  necessary  to  discuss  the 
subject  farther  than  to  refer  to  the  controversy  be- 
tween these  two  gentlemen. 

The  last  named  has  endeavored  to  show  that  wages 
are  not  paid  from  any  fund  whatever,  but  that  their 
amount  is  usually  added  to  the  capital  of  the  em- 
ployer before  the  wages  are  paid.  This  is  sub- 
stantially true,  and  yet  the  transaction  has  the  ap- 
pearance of  proving  that  the  capitalist  has  the  amount 
paid  as  wages  outstanding  till  he  is  enabled  to  com- 
plete and  sell  the  production  which  the   labor  has 


THE  NATURE   OF  WAGES.  97 

assisted  to  effect.  Of  tliis  circumstance  Mr.  Mallock 
takes  advantage  to  read  Mr.  George  a  severe  lecture, 
but,  as  I  conceive,  greatly  overrates  his  triumph — even 
if  it  were  one.  For  whether  wages  are  drawn  from 
a  capitalized  fund  or  otherwise  depends  upon  no 
metaphysical  deduction,  but  upon  what  the  payment 
of  wages  proves  to  be  on  analysis.  Perhaps  Mr. 
George  has  not  been  sufficiently  careful  in  that  re- 
spect ;  but  Mr.  Mallock  has  not  analyzed  such  pay- 
ment at  all,  but  treats  it  as  an  appearance  to  be 
accounted  for  in  the  easiest  way.  What  is  paid  as 
wages  must  be  either,  1st,  an  exchange;  or  2d,  a 
credit,  or  3d,  an  earnest,  in  the  division  of  some 
co-operative  product. 

Now,  if  it  is  an  exchange,  as  I  admit  it  may  be, 
when  the  stipulation  is  intelligently  and  equitably 
entered  into,  then  nothing  could  be  more  stupid  and 
absurd  than  to  say  it  was  paid  from  capital.  Mr. 
Mallock  might  as  well  say  that  when  two  men  trade 
horses  without  either  giving  boot,  they  do  it  each  from 
capital  of  the  other.  The  workman  parts  with  his 
labor,  or  the  thiug  in  which  it  is  incorporated,  and 
the  employer  parts  with  his  money,  or  substantially 
the  things  Avliich  the  laborer  requires  for  consump- 
tion. If  it  is  an  exchange,  it  is  precisely  as  Mr. 
George  asserts — nothing  drawn  from  capital.  That 
could  only  happen  if  the  trade  was  specially  unjust 
or  unfortunate  to  the  capitalist.  Mr.  George  does 
not  contend  tliat  capital  in  that  case  might  not  be  so 
reduced  by  wages.  The  payment  of  M'ages  may  also 
be  a  credit,  but  not  if  it  be  a  real  exchange,  unless 
the  wages,  indeed,  Avere  paid  in  advance,  but  such  is 
not  a  usual  custom  ;  tlie  laborer,  on  the  other  hand, 


98  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

is  the  creditor  advancing  the  labor  for  a  day,  a  week, 
or  even  a  month  or  more. 

The  hewing  and  laying  of  the  keel  of  a  ship,  to  use 
Mr.  Mallock's  illustration,  is  one  step,  and  a  very 
important  one.  Certainly,  the  builder  who  con- 
structs the  ship  has  the  same  amount  of  capital  for 
the  purpose  of  building  ships  as  he  had  before  he 
paid  the  wages  of  the  shipwright,  and  the  cost  of 
material,  etc.,  for  the  keeL  And  the  keel  so  pur- 
chased is  as  a  keel  as  truly  consumed  when  it  re- 
ceives the  transom  and  ribs,  as  is  the  ship  when  it  is 
completed  and  purchased  for  a  commercial  or  other 
purpose.  If  not  so,  than  no  step  is  appreciable  till 
the  last  day's  requisite  work  is  done,  and  the  work- 
man who  performs  that  service  in  that  one  da3-'s 
work  actually  renders  to  the  owner  all  the  capital 
put  into  it,  with  the  profit  or  loss  as  the  venture  may 
have  realized. 

Doubtless,  risk  attends  ship-building  and  every 
other  industrial  enterprise  ;  but  that  is  not  the  ques- 
tion at  issue,  but  simply  whether  the  capitalist,  as 
the  operator  may  be  termed,  draws  upon  his  fund  in 
paying  wages  to  a  greater  amount  than  he  draws 
upon  the  capital  of  the  laborer,  his  labor.  If  it  was 
a  question  of  paying  advanced  wages,  then  it  might 
be  justly  claimed  that  the  employer  supported  the 
worker  b}^  supplying  the  means  to  purchase  food  and 
necessaries  while  he  was  at  work.  But  Mr.  Mallock 
does  not  make  this  point,  nor  would  the  usual  cus- 
tom justify  any  such  claim.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
means  to  support  life  and  enable  the  man  to  work  a 
week  or  a  month  are  owned  by  himself  and  expended 
before  his  wages  are  received,  to  say  nothing  of  the 


THE  XATUEE   OF  WAGES.  99 

means  of  bringing  up  and  educating  tlie  man  to  do 
efficient  -^ork.  Most  certainJy,  ilien,  viewing  it  from 
its  simplest  economic  aspect,  the  employer  draws 
not  from  a  fund  of  his  own,  but  from  a  fund  of  the 
laborer's,  and  that  before  he  pays  any  wages  at  all, 
and  the  utmost  he  does  is  to  i-eturn  the  capital  the 
worker  has  expended.  This  argument  proceeds 
upon  the  ground  of  an  exchange,  which  in  its  very 
nature  precludes  any  conclusion  other  than  that  in 
the  transaction  equivalents  are  transferred,  and  that 
as  much  capital  passes  to  one  side  of  the  equation  as  to 
the  other.  The  matter  of  risk  is  another  and  wholly 
different  element  with  which  the  nature  of  wages  has 
nothing  to  do  in  any  way.  An  exchange,  in  the  esti- 
mates of  the  parties,  covers  all  risks  ivhich  each  may  run 
in  parting  with  a  staple  or  speculative  value. 

There  is  another  view  of  wages,  however,  and  which 
I  think  will  apply  more  generally  to  payment  of  hire- 
ling labor  than  either  that  of  an  exchange  or  a  credit. 
Its  nature  is  that  of  an  earnest  of  ultimate  co-operative 
division.  In  this  sense  only  can  Mr.  Mallock's  idea 
that  wages  are  drawn  from  a  fund  have  any  logical 
foundation.  And  then,  they  are  not  drawn  from  the 
fund  of  the  operator  or  capitalist,  as  he  supposes, 
but  from  the  fund  of  the  co-operative  movement, 
which  every  industry  is  in  which  numbers  are  en- 
gaged in  any  line  of  production,  and  as  we  have  seen, 
arc  drawn  originally  from  the  capital  of  the  laborer. 
We  would  gladly  welcome  Mr.  Mallock  to  the  in- 
dustrial side  of  this  great  problem,  and  to  that  he 
must  come  or  abandon  tlie  notion  that  wages  are 
paid  from  any  capitalized  fund  whatever. 

The  only  possible  circumstance  under  wliich  I  can 


100  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

conceive  tliat  a  man  draws  upon  liis  accumulated 
means  to  pay  wages,  is  where  lie  elects  to  pay  a  body- 
servant,  or  some  favorite,  to  do  things  which  are  of 
no  utility  and  have  no  productive  result.  But  surely 
any  such  plea  as  that  thought  suggests  cannot  have 
been  intended  by  either  of  the  gentlemen  as  bearing 
upon  the  points  raised. 

Another  of  Mr.  Mallock's  criticisms,  relied  on  by 
him  as  thoroughly  demolishing  the  positions  of  the 
reformers  he  attacks,  can  be  properly  alluded  to  in 
this  connection.  He  endeavors  to  show  that  while 
Adam  Smith  admits  that  in  the  primitive  stage  of 
society  the  natural  wages  are  the  entire  product  of 
labor,  it  is  only  in  that  primitive  state  that  such  is 
the  case,  and  that  the  moment  accumulations  take 
place,  and  a  fund  is  set  aside  to  pay  wages,  a  change 
takes  place  in  the  position  of  the  laborer  to  his  work, 
which  reverses  his  relation  to  the  production,  and 
that  to  realize  again  the  condition  under  which  he 
can  have  the  full  result  of  his  production  is  to  re- 
solve society  into  its  original  elements,  relapse  into 
savagism,  and  again  go  gathering  nuts,  picking  ber- 
ries, dwelling  in  huts  and  caves,  and  dressing  in  the 
skins  of  wild  beasts.  The  illustration,  which  he 
seems  to  think  quite  settles  the  point,  is  of  Mr. 
George's  own  showing  in  regard  to  the  year  1877  in 
the  San  Joaquin  Valley,  where,  although  there  was 
great  scarcity  of  grain  on  account  of  a  failure  of  the 
crop,  when  the  rains  came  and  a  future  harvest  seemed 
assured  those  who  had  hoarded  their  grain  became 
anxious  to  sell,  and  so  the  grain  thus  held  supplied 
the  need  of  the  cultivators,  "  set  free,  in  effect  pro- 
duced,  by  the  work  done  for  the  next  crop." 


THE   NATURE   OF   WAGES.  101 

Now,  altliougli  Mr.  George  might  deserve  castiga- 
tion  for  so  careless  a  slip  of  the  pen,  if  he  used  the 
phrase  in  the  sense  Mr.  Mallock  gives  it,  it  is  cer- 
tainly very  unfair  in  Mr.  Mallock  to  parade  this 
assumed  misuse  of  language  as  conveying  the  very 
gist  and  kernel  of  Mr.  George's  reasoning..  It  does 
jiothing  of  the  kind.  The  sense  of  his  paragraph 
would  have  been  just  as  complete  and  conclusive  of 
his  position  if  he  had  left  out  the  word  "  produced," 
and  merely  said  that  the  grain  was  "  set  free  "  by  the 
fact  of  its  being  known  that  plowing  and  sowing  were 
going  on  in  the  valley  with  every  prospect  of  an 
abundant  crop. 

To  assume  that  he  meant  that  "  this  year's  plow- 
ing produces  [in  an  industrial  sense]  last  year's 
crop,"  as  Mr.  Mallock  asserts,  is  torturing  an  oppo- 
nent's words  in  a  manner  wholly  without  excuse. 
The  most  that  Mr.  George  could  have  intended  was 
that  the  grain  was  from  this  cause  brought  into 
market,  and  may  be  said  to  be  produced  in  its  tech- 
nical economic  sense,  i.  e.,  in  the  market  at  the  time. 
My  object  in  these  references  is  not  to  defend  Mr. 
George,  who  is  abundantly  able  to  take  care  of  him- 
self, but  to  show  how  utterly  Mr.  Mallock  fails  to 
prove,  what  the  whole  tenor  of  his  book  assumes,  tliat 
landlordism  and  capitalism  are  essential  and  efl'ective 
agents  in  human  progress  and  enterprise. 

His  illustration  of  dates  and  tlie  "  crystal,  which 
is  two  days'  cb'rab  amongst  the  mountains,"  ])roves 
tlie  very  reverse  of  what  ho  offers  it  to  prove,  for 
the  dates  are  natural  productions,  and  so  is  the 
crystal,  Tlie  savage  has  only  to  gather  either.  The 
desire  for  tlio  possession  of  the  crystal  incites  liiin 


102  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

to  gather  two  days'  supply  of  dates  instead  of  one, 
and  thus  capital  begins.  But  surely  the  whole  re- 
sult of  the  labor  still  belongs  to  the  gatherer  and 
climber.  Only  when  we  suppose  this  two  days'  sup- 
plies to  have  been  in  the  hands  of  another,  under  free 
access  to  the  date-trees  and  to  the  mountains,  could 
we  intelligently  inquire  what  would  have  occurred 
under  sensible  and  honest  dealing  between  the  two, 
if  they  sought  to  co-operate  in  the  manner  supposed. 
The  crystal  seeker  would  not  have  given  more  than 
the  results  of  one  day's  search,  or  half  of  his  two 
days'  search,  for  the  two  days'  supply  of  dates,  for 
he  would  say  to  the  holder  of  the  dates :  "  It  will 
take  me  one  day  to  gather  the  dates,  and  there  is  no 
reason  why  I  should  give  you  more  than  that  pro- 
portion of  what  I  may  obtain."  As  the  gathering  of 
the  crystals  is  a  comparatively  new  industry,  and 
requires  some  moral  determination  and  persistent 
purpose,  the  probabilities  are  that  the  crystal  hunter, 
rather  than  the  date-gatherer,  would  claim  a  differ- 
ence in  his  favor.  This  view,  which  accords  with 
Mr.  Mallock's  idea  that  the  higher  forms  of  industry 
dominate  and  control  the  division  of  labor  and  the  in- 
creased production  resulting  therefrom,  through  "  the 
directors  of  labor  who  begin  exactly  where  their  fath- 
ers ended,"  while  "  the  laborers  begin  exactly  where 
their  fathers  began,"  disproves  fully  any  claim  of 
capital  to  limit  production  even  in  form.  No  intel- 
ligible definition  of  labor,  however,  can  be  confined 
properly  to  that  of  men  who  begin  exactly  where 
their  fathers  began.  The  directors  of  labor  are  those 
whose  intelligent  and  fruitful  labor  opens  new  paths 
to  industry  and  discovers  new  uses  in  the  materials 


THE   NATUKE   OF  WAGES.  103 

coming  under  tlieir  inspection,  as  well  as  new  de- 
vices and  the  invention  and  application  of  improved 
machinery. 

Instead  of  proving,  as  he  sets  out  to  do,  that  cap- 
ital is  a  productive  force  and  "  can  go  on  increasing 
and  increasing  whilst  the  quantity  of  labor  remains  j 
stationary,"  he  simply  proves  that  this  is  all  due,  not 
to  capital  at  all,  which  ends  where  it  begins  alwa^^s, 
but  "  to  machinery  and  the  direction  of  labor,"  as  he 
himself  states.  What  I  have  to  say  about  machinery 
will  be  found  under  another  head ;  but  I  may  remark 
here  that  machinery  springs  not  from  capital,  but 
from  the  labor  of  the  inventor  and  mechanic,  and 
both  the  working  of  the  machine  and  the  direction  of 
the  manual  labor  are  labor  both  of  hand  and  brain, 
machinery  being  only  a  department  under  the  organ- 
ization of  labor.  It  is  this  higher  form  of  labor, 
associated,  but  only  when  associated,  with  the  hum- 
bler, but  equally  important,  manual  labor,  which 
brings  out  the  hoarded  wealth  of  the  past  or  "  pre- 
vious labor,"  as  Mr.  Mallock  terms  it — and  which  it 
is — and  sets  it  in  motion,  giving  it  all  the  value  it 
has.  It  is  inert  material  as  really  as  the  earth  or 
any  substance  derived  from  it,  and  has  no  more  to 
do  with  productive  industry  and  its  results  than  has 
the  granite  in  the  quarry  to  do  with  chiseling  and 
erecting  itself  into  a  fine  Corinthian  column.  That 
is  done  by  the  designing  mind  and  cunning  hand. 

But  let  us  refer  again  to  the  man  of  tlie  dates  and 
crystals.  We  have  seen  how  improbable  it  would 
be  tliat,  ill  any  division  of  labor  in  wliich  the  crystal 
liunfnr  sought  tlie  co-operation  of  tlie  holder  of  the 
date  capital  necessary  to  enable  him  to  sjieud  two  or 


lO-i  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

more  days  in  the  mouutaius,  lie  sliould  be  will- 
ing to  give  the  capitalist  any  more  than  an  equal 
proportion  of  his  crystals.  By  contract,  it  is  true, 
they  might  make  the  deal  unequal;  but  the  usual 
arrangement  would  doubtless  be  as  I  have  supposed. 
I  can  tell  Mr.  Mallock,  however,  just  when  capital, 
in  his  sense,  would  appear,  and  "  go  on  increasing 
and  increasing,  while  the  quantity  of  labor  remains 
stationary,"  and  it  need  not  wait  for  the  development 
of  higher  forms  of  production  and  complicated 
machinery  to  be  able  to  limit  labor  either.  Let  one 
of  the  date-gatherers  get  a  law  passed  inclosing  the 
date-trees,  and  vesting  the  title  in  him,  or,  in  a  more 
primitive  way,  let  him,  if  stronger  i3hysically,  or  if 
possessed  of  a  more  cunningly  devised  war-club,  re- 
duce the  other  to  a  state  where  he  becomes  willing  to 
enter  into  an  agreement  to  acknowledge  as  private 
property  of  the  victor  all  the  date-trees  within  their 
knowledge,  and  as  well  the  mountains  where  the 
crystals  are  found,  and  though  there  will  be  no 
greater  quantity  of  labor  performed  than  before, 
the  two  gathering  each  his  day's  supply,  jet  since 
the  subjected  man  will  yield  the  stronger  one-half 
of  his  gathering,  there  would  soon  arise  a  capitalized 
fund  which  would  support  a  man  in  huntiug  crystals 
not  two  days  but  a  week,  month,  or  year.  This  the 
capitalist  would  loan  the  other  on  the  certainly  lib- 
eral condition  that  the  finder  should  give  him  one- 
half  that  he  found  as  proprietor  of  the  mountains, 
and  a  fourth  for  the  use  of  the  dates  required.  Thus 
a  fund  of  crystals  would  arise,  which  would  be  more 
endurable  and  available  for  more  purposes  than  the 
perishable  dates,  and  become,  it  might  be,  a  general, 


THE  NATURE  OF  WAGES.  105 

if  not  legal,  tender.  Thus  we  have  capital  produced 
and  conserved.  But  what  is  it?  Simply  withheld 
wages,  and  which  the  capitalist  is  enabled  to  hold 
because,  and  onhj  because,  as  a  landholder  he  can  keep 
the  other  from  the  date-trees  and  from  the  mountains. 
And  his  only  purpose  in  playing  la.ndlord  as  to 
either  is  to  be  enabled  to  do  that  very  thing.  We 
may  follow  up  any  industry,  of  however  complex 
a  character,  and  we  shall  find  no  place  where  capital- 
ism can  come  in,  except  as  a  usurper.  By  conspir- 
ing with  the  directors  of  labor,  the  men  who  organize 
and  distribute  it,  the  capitalist  may  make  himself 
necessary  to  the  progress  of  any  line  of  production, 
and  so  pretend  to  limit  its  particular  form.  But  in 
every  instance  it  will  be  found  to  depend  upon  his 
ability  to  engross  possession  of  the  land,  or  to  avail 
himself  of  gome  class  privilege  or  property  right, 
which  is  a  creature  of  special  statute  or  of  some 
state  device,  to  shield  a  class  from  the  operations  of 
economic  law,  and  the  competition  of  those  who 
would  otherwise  destroy  their  monopoly  and  expose 
the  groundlessness  of  the  assumption  of  a  capitalistic 
increase.  We  can  now  see  how  the  directors  of  labor 
begin  where  their  fathers  ended,  while  labor  has  to 
begin  anew. 


CHAPTEE  VIII. 

PEIVATE   GOODS   AND   SOCIAL  WE.\LTH. 

One  of  tlie  first  observations  we  make  in  regard  to 
tilings  tliat  we  esteem  is  that  they  are  found  to  be 
either  in  the  possession  of  private  persons  or  are 
open  to  the  enjoyment  of  all.  Before  any  question 
as  to  whether  certain  things  may  be  called  capital  or 
otherwise,  the  question  arises  as  to  the  use  they 
perform,  and  whether  such  use  is  particular  or  gen- 
eral, private  or  social.  In  the  classification  of  the 
economists,  wealth  is  generally  treated  as  capital, 
which  is  by  some  made  to  include  land  and  labor  as 
well.  But  capital,  as  thus  defined,  becomes  clothed 
with  kingly  prerogatives  which  can  only  be  recog- 
nized by  industry  to  its  own  enslavement.  Only 
recently  "  persons "  were  capital,  and  its  usurped 
rights  were  exercised  over  them  with  unlimited 
force.  Even  then,  however,  labor  was  acknowledged 
as  the  creator  of  all  social  wealth,  and  as  we  pro- 
ceed it  will  be  made  to  appear  more  and  more  clearly 
that  the  false  forms  of  pretended  capital,  so  far  from 
being  social  wealth,  are  but  subtle  devices  clothed 
with  legal  forms,  for  definite  purpose  to  abstract 
social  wealth  to  personal  uses,  and  make  it  private. 

B}'  applying  a  simple  test  we  shall  also  find  what 
is  really  wealth  and  what  is  only  a  counterfeit,  but 
which  is  made  to  pass  current  in  trade,  since  the 

106 


PRR^ATE   GOODS.  107 

parties  interested  in  circulating  these  false  tokens 
by  some  strange  infatuation  of  the  people  are  en- 
abled to  have  them  stamped  with  the  seal  of  the 
state  and  their  claims  enforced  by  the  sanctions  of 
statute  law,  and  the  whole  power  of  the  government. 
If  we  examine  into  the  forms  of  what,  for  the  sake 
of  distinction,  I  will  call  private  goods  and  social 
wealth,  it  will  be  discovered,  what  will  appear  at  first 
a  little  surprising,  that  everything  which  com- 
mands increase,  independent  of  work,  belongs  to  the 
former  class,  while  nothing  that  belongs  to  the  latter, 
if  ice  exclude  the  land  and  labor,  will  be  found  to  have 
that  quality  or  capacity  in  auy  degree  whatever. 

Social  Wealth  consists  of  all  those  forms  of  pro- 
duction, in  whatever  hands,  which  promote  the  well- 
being  of  society;  the  garnered  fruits  of  the  earth, 
which  serve  for  food,  raiment,  and  shelter  to  its  in- 
habitants, enabling  them  to  subsist,  to  labor  for  the 
production  of  more  fruits,  and  in  the  social  and  in- 
tellectual fields  to  promote  the  progress  and  rich- 
ness of  the  social  life.  Even  economists  do  not  con- 
tend that  anything  employed  in  any  of  these  ways  is 
capital,  or  what  they  are  pleased  to  call  an  "econom- 
ic quantity."  I  should  except,  perhaps,  education; 
though,  oil  reflection,  it  will  be  seen  that  this,  when 
it  becomes  exclusive,  and,  therefore,  may  be  said  to 
beget  an  increase,  is  a  private  rather  than  a  social 
possession;  since,  if  all  had  equal  opportunities  of 
education,  the  advantage  in  any  pursuit  wliich  edu- 
cation would  confer  wouhl  be  trifling. 

Society  has  property  in  wliatevor  adds  to  the 
general  grxxl.  Finely  improved  grounds,  witli  a  pict- 
uresc^ue  arrangement  of  trees,  shrubs,  and  flowers, 


108  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

are  social  wealth,  although  it  may  also  be  enjoyed  as 
private  proj^erty ;  because  it  adds  to  the  prospect 
open  to  all,  and  gives  enjoyment,  through  the  sense 
of  sight,  to  otliers,  as  well  as  to  the  owner.  A  well- 
built  house,  which  adds  beauty  to  the  landscape,  is 
to  that  extent  social  propert3^  All  forms  of  wealth 
which  are  placed  A\dthin  the  circle  of  exchange  are 
social  wealth,  since  they  add  to  the  supply  which 
members  of  the  society  require. 

Any  of  these  may  be  also  in  private  possession  at 
the  same  time.  Private  wealth  and  social  wealth  do 
not  necessarily  exclude  each  other  in  material  things. 
Tilt  land  and  all  its  opportunities,  and  natural  produc- 
tions, are  social  wealth;  but  not  exchangeable  until 
they  have  been  privately  appropriated  or  allotted. 

Private  Wealth,  or  goods,  consists  of  all  those 
things  which  are  privately  approjDriated  and  used,  of 
a  material  character,  and  of  all  those  rights  over 
things  which  society  recognizes  and  enforces,  whether 
wisel}"  or  unwisely. 

The  latter  class  embraces  those  forms  of  private 

wealth  which  yield  income  without  work.     Without 

,  labor  no  income  can  be  had,  of  course,  as  that  creates 

all  wealth  ;  but  it  is  from  the  labor  of  others  that  the 

capitalist  is  yielded  an  increase,  and  not  otherwise. 

A  distinction  between  private  and  social  goods  is 
seen  in  the  nature  of  their  use  or  service.  That 
which  serves  the  personal  use  only  may  be  said  to 
be  private.  That  which  serves  social  use  wholly  or 
mainly  is  social,  while  that  which  serves  both  a 
social  use  and  a  private  use  as  well  is  both  social 
and  private.  Another  distinction  important  to  be 
drawn  is  that  the  existence  of  wealth  whollv  social 


PRIVATE  GOODS.  109 

has  an  interest  for  the  private  individual;  while 
that  which  is  wholly  private  need  have  no  interest 
for  society.  For  example  :  If  social  wealth  is  de- 
stroyed the  whole  people  suffer  each  a  loss  corre- 
sponding to  his  personal  interest,  or  as  a  member 
of  the  society.  On  the  other  hand,  the  destruction 
of  purehj  private  property,  under  capitalistic  domi- 
nation, is  often  not  a  public  loss,  but  a  public  gain, 
as  we  shall  see. 

Private  property,  under  existing  capitalistic  in- 
stitutioLS,  is  largely  the  creature  of  law.  Some  of 
this  law  is  consistent  with  natural  law  ;  but  a  large 
proportion  of  it  is  entirely  inconsistent  with  any 
natural  principle  of  law  whatever.  For  instance, 
that  which  makes  property  of  the  land  dependent 
on  a  commercial  sale,  and  registered  deed,  and  not 
upon  occupation  and  use ;  which  falsely  assumes 
ownership  of  what  one  is  not  in  possession  of,  but 
another.  That  which  enforces,  against  the  ignorant 
and  incompetent,  the  fulfilment  of  contracts  thej^  did 
not  understand,  and  were  unqualified  to  make.  That 
which  enforces  payment  for  privilege  of  any  kind, 
whether  of  tilling  the  land  or  of  employing  the  pro- 
ductive forces  of  nature  in  a  way  to  produce  wealth. 

We  have  seen  that  social  wealth  was  not  of  a  kind 
to  yield  increase  without  labor,  unless  we  embrace 
the  land  in  tliat  category,  which  is  not  productive 
without  labor  in  any  economic  sense  ;  that  all  forms 
of  wealtli  or  capital,  which  yield  such  increase,  are 
also  ]:)rivate  property  ;  and  we  shall  see  that  tliese 
are  all  of  a  class  whose  destruction  Avould  not  reduce 
bv  one  farthing  tlie  social  wf^altli  of  tlie  world.  In 
1800  there  were  some  $2,000,000,000  worth  of  private 


110  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

property  in  this  country,  in  the  form  of  rights  to 
"  chattels  personal,"  belonging  to  a  class  of  capital- 
ists in  the  southern  states  of  the  Union.  For  want 
of  manly  statesmanship  on  either  side  to  treat  the 
issue  which  then  arose  in  a  rational  way,  civil  war 
resulted  and  the  institution  was  abolished  as  a  war 
measure.  Now,  this  was,  doubtless,  a  great  hardship 
to  a  few  individuals,  but  by  the  destruction  of  these 
two  billions  of  property  no  social  wealth  whatever 
suffered.  There  was  just  as  much  land,  just  as  many 
laborers,  and  just  as  much  capacity  of  production, 
and  just  as  much  food,  raiment,  and  shelter  as  before. 
If  war  reduced  property  in  either  section,  that  stands 
to  the  account  of  the  war,  not  to  the  fact  that  slavery 
was  abolished.  It  is  now  admitted,  I  think,  that  the 
landholders,  with  their  lands  retained,  are  better  off 
than  they  were  ^oith  both  their  land  and  slaves,  and  by 
the  cultivation  of  the  same  land  and  the  same  capital 
realize  better  incomes  from  hired  labor  than  they 
ever  did  from  slave  labor.  As  capitalists,  however, 
they  had  this  complaint  to  make,  that  it  gave  the 
newcomer  an  advantage,  for,  with  the  same  ca23ital 
in  land,  tools,  seeds,  and  improvements,  which  the 
former  slaveholder  possessed,  including  slaves,  he 
could  work  more  effectually,  as  he  would  have  the 
amount  formerly  invested  in  slaves,  to  increase  the 
extent  of  his  j)lantation,  and  the  effectiveness  of  his 
management. 

But  what  is  true  of  the  property  in  slaves  is  true, 
also,  of  property  in  land,  considered  and  administered 
as  trading  capital.  This,  like  slavery,  depends  wholly 
on  municipal  law  for  its  existence,  and  if  abolished 
by  proclamation  to-day  could  not  in  any  way  affect 


PRIVATE  GOODS.  Ill 

the  productiveuess  of  the  land  or  the  effectiveness  of 
the  hibor.  The  testimou}^  of  all  authority,  as  well  as 
experience,  is  that  the  land  which  is  owned  by  its 
cultivator  is  the  most  productive.  But  besides  title 
deeds,  which  confer  dominion  without  occupation, 
we  come  now  to  a  large  class  of  private  property 
which  is  even  more  shadowy,  but  which  has  the  power 
to  lay  labor  under  constant  and  most  onerous  contri- 
bution. I  refer  to  mortgages  and  the  numerous 
evidences  of  debt,  which  are  made  commercial  cap- 
ital and  have  no  purpose  or  use  except  to  draw  rent 
or  interest  from  the  annual  productions  of  labor.  It 
would  be  instructive  to  get  at  the  real  extent  of  this 
form  of  capital ;  but  unless  the  people  are  prepared 
to  act  upon  Hhe  subject  by  the  knowledge  which  is 
involved  in  every-day  experience,  and  in  nearly  all 
business  transactions,  and  must  be  generally  familiar, 
it  will  be  of  little  service  to  give  an  array  of  tabu- 
lated statistics,  showing  the  actual  amount,  and  which 
is  constantly  increasing.  But  for  failures  and  bank- 
ruptcies, which  are  constantly  going  on,  and  which 
are  owing  mainly  to  the  absorption  of  this  system, 
they  would  soon  far  exceed  the  entire  social  wealth 
of  the  country  in  nominal  value.  Macleod  estimates 
the  amount  in  England  at  more  than  $30,000,000,000. 
And  they  now  quite  equal  in  this  country  the  value 
of  everything  but  the  value  of  the  land,  which  is  it- 
self a  fictitious  value,  created  by  our  law  of  land.  In 
addition  to  the  large  properties  which  are  rented  in 
city  and  country,  a  large  part  of  the  farms,,  work- 
shops, and  dwellings  not  rented  arc  under  mortgage. 
There  are  the  bonds  of  the  national,  state,  and  munic- 
ipal goverumonts,  a  vast  sum  which  draws  interest 


112  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

from  labor,  wliicli  has  discharged  its  public  duties,  to 
pay  caj^italists  for  shirking  theirs.  Our  political 
system  enabled  the  capitalist  to  create  annuities  for 
themselves  out  of  the  disasters  of  our  civil  war,  while 
it  took  the  service  of  the  laborer,  artisan,  and  clerk, 
at  a  bare  subsisting  stipend,  and  their  lives  as  a  sac- 
rifice to  the  integrity  of  the  union.  Then  there  are 
the  bonds  of  the  railroads,  three  and  a  half  billions, 
and  their  stock,  four  billions  more,  much  of  which 
represents  no  actual  wealth,  but  which  is  empowered 
to  draw  the  customary  increase.  Then  there  is  the 
whole  bank  circulation,  which  is  let  out  to  business 
and  mere  speculative  enterprises,  upon  which  the 
banks  draw  interest,  at  the  same  time  drawing  from 
the  government  interest  upon  the  bonds,  upon  whose 
security  the  circulation  is  based,  as  if  two  men  should 
exchange  notes,  and  the  one  whose  credit  and  re- 
sponsibility alone  gave  value  to  either  were  to  pay 
the  other  interest  on  both. 

All  the  above-mentioned  forms  of  capital,  if  wealth 
at  all,  are  private,  not  social  wealth,  and  they  might 
be  all  burned  to-morrow  without  destroying  the  least 
portion  of  actual  wealth,  except  as  to  their  value  as 
waste  paper.  And  they  will  all  cease  to  be  property 
or  capital  at  any  moment  when  the  municipal  law 
shall  be  annulled  which  made  their  existence  possi- 
ble, or  the  j)ower  of  the  state  to  enforce  these  arti- 
ficial rights  be  withdrawn.  It  can  certainly  require 
no  further  argument  to  show  that  these  forms  of 
wealth  which  alone  yield  increase  are  the  creatures 
of  the  municipal  law,  and  have  no  foundation  in  the 
law  of  exchanges  or  of  social  comity. 

That  people  might   be  indebted  to  one   another 


PRIVATE   GOODS.  113 

Tincler  strictly  economic  law  may  happen.  But  so- 
ciet}^  has  nothing  to  do  with  that,  except  to  see  that 
no  wrong  is  done  by  it.  It  cannot  guarantee  in- 
crease, because  that  can  arise  from  nothing  which 
society  can  recognize  as  wealth.  Exchange  refers  to 
the  interchange  of  commodities.  An  agreement  to 
pay  a  certain  sum  of  money  at  a  given  time,  except  it 
constitute  an  exchange,  is  not  a  social  act,  and  society 
cannot  be  properly  asked  to  enforce  it.  If  there  is 
an  exchange,  and  property  is  given  for  the  note,  then 
the  note  is  payment,  as  shown  conclusively  by  Mac- 
leod,  though  not  "satisfaction."  The  two  have  made 
their  bargain,  and  ^ve  must  presume  it  is  satisfactory 
to  both  sides.  If  either  party  has  deceived  or  mis- 
represented the  nature  of  the  thing  he  has  exchanged, 
whether  the  commodity  or  the  promissory  note,  then, 
and  then  only,  it  becomes  a  matter  for  social  arbitra- 
tion. If  tliey  had  "swapped  horses"  in  good  faith, 
and  one  of  the  horses  should  die  shortly  after,  or 
turn  out  valueless,  the  law  would  not  interfere  to 
rectifv  the  mistake.  No  more  should  it  if  a  note 
taken  in  payment  turns  out  worthless.  Only  upon 
theground  tliat  fraud  or  misrepresentationflias  been 
employed  has  society  any  excuse  for  interference. 
Already  the  logic  of  this  position  is  recognized  by 
our  bankrupt  laws,  and  in  our  statute  of  limitations 
whicli  refuses  to  enforce  collections  after  a  certain 
time  has  elapsed.  l3ut  as  to  enforcing  the  collection 
of  any  interest  or  increase,  society  cannot  do  it,  how- 
ever solemn  and  formal  the  contract,  withinit  becom- 
ing the  ally  c)f  a  vice  wliich  is  destructively  unsocial 
and  ant;i,goiiistic,  as  well  as  economically  absurd. 
In    the    distinction    between    social    and    ])iivate 


114  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

wealth,  we  have  tlie  natural  limit  of  societarj  in- 
terference in  regard  to  property.  Society  is  under 
every  obligation  to  guard  the  common  weal.  It 
has  nothing  to  do  with  strictly  private  goods,  or 
private  rights,  except  to  protect  its  members,  in  the 
enjoyment  of  them,  or  such  of  them  as  are  clearly 
within  the  realm  of  natural  law.  It  has  nothing  to 
do  with  the  creation  or  bestowing  of  these  rights. 
Any  such  attempt  betrays  usurjiation  or  conspiracy. 
The  utmost  it  can  lawfully  do  is  to  define  those  rights, 
and  their  limitations.  It  cannot  broaden  or  extend 
them  in  any  direction  without  encroaching  upon  and 
subverting  the  social  right.  It  can  only  confer  a 
franchise  upon  one  to  assume  an  exceptional  control 
by  sacrificing  the  social  right,  or  subjecting  other  in- 
dividuals to  be  plundered  and  wronged. 

Having  shown  in  what  consists  social  wealth,  as 
distinguished  from  private  wealth,  let  us  see  if  we 
can  trace  the  history  of  its  production  or  increase. 
We  have  placed  land  and  labor  in  this  category  for 
convenience  in  making  clear  the  distinction.  Keally, 
as  we  shall  see  in  the  section  on  capital,  they  are  the 
only  natural  capital.  In  sj^eaking  of  the  increase  or 
production  of  social  wealth  they  are  necessarily  ex- 
cluded, since  neither  can  be  said  in  any  economic 
sense  to  be  produced  or  procured.  The  extent  of 
private  production  of  goods  is  very  narrow.  By  him- 
self a  man  can  do  little  to  increase  his  store.  How- 
ever a  Crusoe  might  succeed  on  an  uninhabited 
tropical  island,  he  found  the  association  of  another, 
even  an  ignorant  savage,  a  very  desirable  aid.  In 
artificial  society  the  individual  is  still  more  depen- 
dent on  social  co-operation.     So  accustomed  are  we 


PKIVATE   GOODS.  115 

to  reap  the  benefits  of  social  life  that  we  seldom 
reflect  iipou  the  advantages  we  derive  from  it,  even 
in  the  supply  of  our  most  constant  needs.  On  re- 
flection, we  shall  find  that  but  a  few  of  them  are 
supplied  by  our  own  direct,  unaided  efl'ort.  The 
simplest  productions  are  the  result  of  a  combination 
of  labors.  And  yet  the  individual,  particularly  if 
successful  in  obtaining  a  large  control,  is  liable  to 
think  that  he  does  it  all.  How  little  he  does,  and 
how  much  depends  on  the  assistance  and  co-opera- 
tion of  others,  is  seen  in  the  simplest  exchange.  The 
thing  itself  he  wishes  to  exchange  has  been  produced 
with  the  assistance  of  a  number  of  persons.  Then 
the  thing  he  desires  in  exchange  has  been  produced 
in  like  manner  by  a  number  of  conjoint  efforts. 
Again,  the  services  of  the  dealer,  the  forwarder,  and 
the  carrier  are  all  requisite  to  the  exchange  which 
he  makes.     If  one  of  these  fail  the  exchange  fails. 

Now,  in  carrying  on  an  extensive  operation  of 
course  these  combinations  become  extremely  com- 
plicated. The  more  numerous  are  the  services  re- 
quired in  the  production,  and  still  more  numerous 
the  services  in  providing  the  tilings  or  means  to 
maintain  the  demand.  Hence,  it  is  mutual  needs 
and  mutual  services  Avhich  make  any  important 
transaction  possible.  Not  only,  therefore,  is  all 
productive  industry  co-operative,  but  all  exchange. 
It  may  be  to  the  interest  of  individuals  at  any 
point  in  the  circle  of  production  or  of  exchange 
to  ignore  the  social  c-hiiin,  and  extend  the  individual 
right  or  control,  so  as  to  force  unequal  division  ;  but 
it  must  ever  be  the  social  interest  to  guard  the  social 
contr(jl  by  such  limitation  of  tlie  individual  as  will 


116  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

make  the  division,  as  well  as  tlie  production,  operate 
conjointly  and  equitably. 

Herein  lies  the  true,  because  natural,  basis  of  co- 
-operation. It  has  ever  been  present  in  the  jDroduc- 
tion  of  the  goods  of  life,  and  has  only  failed  in 
exchange  and  division  of  these  goods  by  falses  in  the 
treatment  of  the  productive  factors,  and  by  the  sub- 
jection of  the  social  wealth  to  private  domination. 
By  the  creation  of  rights,  based  on  false  premise  and 
pretended  contract,  the  division  of  the  results  of 
social  production  has  become  most  iniquitous  and 
unequal.  Under  the  pretense  that  an  enterprise  re- 
quiring numbers  to  prosecute  it  is  private,  not  co- 
operative, a  system  of  division  has  been  adopted 
which  for  injustice  is  simply  defiant  of  all  sense  or 
logic. ^  The  many  who  do  the  work  are  paid  such 
wages  as  the  market  compels ;  the  one  or  few  who  do 
the  planning  and  furnish  the  plant  take  the  balance 
as  profits,  interest  on  stock,  or  rent  of  premises.  The 
man  who  invests  his  labor  and  perils  life,  as  in  the 
mines  or  manufactories  which  tend  to  shorten  life,  is 
paid  a  certain  rate  of  wages  as  long  as  he  works,  and 
no  longer.  The  man  v/ho  furnishes  plant  or  rents 
the  land. or  loans  the  money  not  only  is  paid  for 
whatever  service  he  renders,  but  becomes  entitled, 
under  pretense  of  having  contributed  productive 
capital,  to  share  in  all  future  production  of  the  vent- 
ure, and  his  children  after  him  to  endless  gen- 
erations. 

H  The  practical  consequences  arising  from  tlie  condition  of  industries 
in  tliis  and  otlier  countries  are  not  such  as,  for  my  part,  I  should  find  it 
easy  to  reconcile  with  any  standard  of  right  generally  accepted  among 
men. — Pkof.  J.  E.  Cairxes. 


PRIVATE   GOODS.  117 

But  surely  something  is  due  to  all  this  plant,  and 
to  the  service  he  has  rendered  in  promoting  business 
and  civino-  employment  to  labor!  That  there  is  a 
demand  for  this  particular  production  is  an  essential 
presupposition,  so  that  he  does  not  give  his  workmen 
emjjloy,  or  even  himself.  Social  or  co-operative  in- 
dustries have  alone  made  this  possible.  This  is 
wholly  independent  of  anj'thing  on  his  part,  or  that 
of  hrs  co-helpers,  except  as  they  may  become  pur- 
chasers and  consumers  themselves  of  the  joint  prod- 
uct. An  entire  half  of  this  industr}^,  then,  is  wholly 
independent  of  the  operator,  toAvard  which  he  has 
contributed  nothing.  As  regards  the  supply,  let  us 
analyze  carefully  the  steps  taken,  and  the  nature  of 
every  element  involved.  We  will  suppose  it  is  the 
mining  of  coal,  so  as  not  to  confuse  the  mind  with 
too  complicated  relations. 

In  the  first  place,  the  land  under  which  this  mine 
is  situated  is  the  social  heritage.  It  may  have  been 
devoted  to  agriculture,  and  while  cultivated  by  the 
proprietor  may  have  been  regarded  as  private  prop- 
erty. But  it  is  now  used  as  a  mining  property,  and 
as-  such  is  a  social  one,  for  one  man  can  do  nothing 
in  the  business  except,  perhaps,  to  dig  out  a  few 
coals  for  his  own  use.  He  must  have  helpers,  asso- 
ciates, or  co-operators.  This  is  not  a  matter  of 
choice,  of  trade,  and  agreement,  which  he  and  they 
can  determine  by  private  negotiation.  It  is  only  as 
to  the  particular  persons  wlio  shall  join  him  in  the 
work  that  there  is  any  election.  He  must  have 
others  to  co-operate  with  him,  or  tluire  is  no  produc- 
tion.    Now,  can  any  such  compensation  as  the  capi- 


118  SOCIAX,  WEALTH. 

talists  receive  be  awarded  to  the  other  co-operators 
or  joint  producers  ? 

The  question  of  comparative  compensation  does 
not  arise  here.  The  one  is  wholly  different  in  char- 
acter from  the  other.  The  management  and  super- 
intendence may  be  vastly  more  useful  than  that  of 
the  common  labor ;  it  is  labor  still.  That  does  not 
touch  the  question.  The  salary  might  be  a  princely 
one,  and  yet  not  involve  the  inequity  under  review. 
This  is  not  a  salary  of  a  person  or  worker,  but  of  an 
inert  thing,  for  which  the  fraudulent  claim  is  put  forth 
of  being  a  producing  means,  or  factor.  The  risks  of 
the  venture  may  be  guarded  against  by  insurance, 
paid  from  resulting  production,  and  all  consumed 
material  may  be  replaced,  and  yet,  under  the  false 
system  of  division,  an  income  to  the  holder  of  the 
property  will  be  adjudged  which  will  nearly  or  quite 
equal  the  entire  wages  of  the  employees,  not  for  one 
year,  but  indefinitely. 

Quite  recently,  a  considerable  manufacturing  con- 
cern, under  the  guise  of  a  "  community,"  claimed  to 
have  "  solved  the  labor  question,"  though,  really, 
they  had  only  ignored  it.  In  their  annual  report 
they  showed  that  they  had  realized  for  the  commu- 
nity no  more  than  they  had  paid  their  employees ; 
and  since  the  community,  men,  women,  and  children, 
were  about  the  same  in  number  as  the  opei'atives, 
most  of  whom  had  families,  however,  they  deemed  it  an 
instance  of  fair  dealing  and  equitable  division  worthy 
of  public  notice  and  imitation.  Following  the  sug- 
gestion, I  instituted  inquiry  among  several  manufact- 
uring establishments,  regarded  as  successful,  and 
was  surprised  to  find  that  in  nearly  every  one  the 


PEIVATE    GOODS.  119 

account  of  profits  coincided  with  tolerable  accuracy 
with  the  wages  account,  however  large  or  small  the 
number  of  employees. 

That  such  results  can  be  shown  may  to  some 
minds  afford  evidence  that  the  inert  capital  should 
receive  a  share  in  the  division  ;  but  we  must  re- 
member that,  although  some  industries  protected  by 
the  state  under  patent  right  or  corporate  monopoly 
will  show  a  much  greater  share  to  false  capital,  often 
yielding  to  one  thousand  dollars  annually  as  much 
as  to  the  entire  year's  work  of  a  man,  a  great  major- 
ity of  the  enterprises  in  business  not  only  3'ield  no 
return  for  the  use  of  tools  and  plant,  other  than  to 
keep  them  whole,  failing  in  many  instances  to  do 
even  this,  but  reward  the  toil  and  application  of  the 
operators  with  a  bare  subsistence.  And  hence  the 
struggle  ior  first  place,  in  every  profession  or  occupa- 
tion, and  for  governmental  protection  against  compe- 
tition, which  tcould  not  take  place  if  capitalized  goods 
yielded  an  increase.  For,  in  that  case,  every  holder 
of  goods  would  be  in  possession  of  an  income  with- 
out work  or  business  of  any  kind,  as  is  a  holder  of 
government  bonds  or  other  funded  obligations.  Such 
parties  could  not  fail  in  business  or  come  into  com- 
petition with  each  other. 

This  plea  of  the  productiveness  of  wealth  is  evi- 
dently an  afterthought  of  capitalism  to  justify  what 
is  rationally  and  economically  unjustifiable,  and  to 
cover  tlio  naked  deformity  of  profits,  interest,  and 
rent,  wliich  liad  their  origin  not  in  any  principle  of 
mutual  reciprocation,  but  in  ;i  forceful  domination, 
in  cunning  false  pretense  of  service,  and  the  down- 
right trickery  of    trade.      It  could  by  such   means 


120  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

only  divert  attention  from  the  plain  truth  in  the 
matter,  whicli  is  that  the  whole  of  social  production 
is  co-operative  toward  whicli  the  employees  have 
contributed  each  a  certain  number  of  days'  work, 
and  the  proprietors  or  operators  a  certain  number 
of  days'  wofks,  or  the  products  of  a  certain  number 
of  days'  works.  And  this  is  conceding  that  the  tools, 
plant,  and"  other  items  contributed  under  the  name 
of  capital  are  really  the  products  of  their  holder's 
labor ;  whereas,  it  is  well  known  that  they  are  more 
commonl}^  the  withheld  shares  justly  due  to  labor  in 
previous  operations.  But  we  need  not  complicate 
the  present  illustration  with  that  consideration. 
Now,  with  the  contributions  as  above  stated,  Avho 
are  the  producers  and,  therefore,  owners  of  the  new 
and  resultant  production?  Unquestionabl}'  the 
contributors,  in  proportion  to  what  they  have  con- 
tributed, whicli  is  co-operation.  Any  other  division, 
though  it  may  follow  co-operation  in  production,  is 
exploitation  of  one  class  by  the  other.  In  a  just 
division,  the  furnishers  of  the  j^lant  would  receive 
again,  as  their  share,  the  plant,  at  such  estimate  as 
will  cover  their  decrease  in  value,  and  the  wear  and 
tear  of  tools,  machinery,  etc.,  which  have  been  con- 
verted into  goods.  Thus  to  each  day's  work  con- 
tributed a  day's  product  will  be  awarded ;  a  day's 
work  signifying  not  so  many  hours'  laj^or  of  each, 
but  that  proportion  which  such  labor  bears  in  utility 
to  the  whole  number  of  days'  work  performed  or 
contributed. 

But,  if  the  capitalist  should  claim  something  over 
and  above  what  he  has  contributed,  then  should  the 
labor  of  the  worker  have  something  over  and  above 


PRIVATE   GOODS.  121 

the  product  of  liis  labor,  which  is  an  absurdity. 
Thus  Ave  arrive  by  another  and  independent  course 
of  reasoning  to  the  same  conclusion,  that  for  any 
one  to  -withdraw  from  any  co-operative  production 
more  than  he  has  put  into  it  is  irrational  as  well  as 
unjust,  for  no  reason  can  be  given  why  one  who  has 
put  his  labor  into  the  current  process  should  not 
receive  an  annuity  from  that  as  well  as  the  one  who 
has  put  in  the  product  of  the  labor  of  former  years. 
The  impossibility  of  carrying  out  such  a  plan  proves 
the  error  of  awarding  profits  to  investments  of  any 
kind.  The  question  of  inducement  to  engage  in  pro- 
ductive enterprises,  and  the  claims  in  regard  to  time 
aud  use  of  the  reproductive  forces  of  nature  and  of 
exchange,  are  sufficiently  discussed  under  the  sec- 
tions in  regard  to  rent,  interest,  and  profits. 

The  last  resort,  in  support  of  these  self-contra- 
dictory claims,  is  the  sacred  nature  of  contract,  and 
the  fact  that 'the  worker,  haAdng  contracted  with  the 
operator  to  regard  his  daily  wages  as  a  full  settle- 
ment of  his  claims  as  a  copartner  in  the  co-operative 
production,  therefore  tlie  division  is  equitable  and 
just.  It  Avill  be  readily  seen,  however,  that  such 
contract  is  void  fo^  several  reasons.  In  the  first 
place,  it  is  made  by  the  employee  in  ignorance  of  his 
rights,  and  not  as  a  sale  of  his  interest  in  the  busi- 
ness, but  as  wages.  If  one  partner  were  to  make 
certain  weekly  or  daily  payments  to  another  partner, 
that  would  not  prevent  the  latter  from  claiming  his 
share  in  the  ultimate  division ;  certaiidy  not,  unless 
it  was  so  expressly  stipulated.  In  the  second  ])lace, 
the  contract  is  made  under  duress.  The  worker 
being  evicted  from  his  natural  inlieritanco,  the  laud, 


122  SOCIAL    WEALTH. 

is  not  in  a  position  to  make  a  binding  contract.  He 
has  no  other  opportunity  of  employment,  but  such 
as  he  is  compelled  to  accept  from  him  who  has 
usurped  the  dominion  of  the  land,  his  natural  inherit- 
ance. He  has  no  resource  but  to  sell  himself  and 
labor  at  such  price  as  the  holder  of  his  patrimony 
offers.  The  reasoning  which  urges  the  ivage  contract 
is  nearly  akin  to  that  which  placed  in  our  national 
compact  a  clause  about  "persons  held  to  service," 
itself  a  relic  of  the  barbarism  which  attempted  to 
justify  slavery,  on  the  civil  ground  of  contract.  I  do 
not  say  that  wages,  under  equitable  conditions, 
miaht  not  be  a  tolerable  method  of  division  of  the 
results  of  co-operative  industry;  as  where  a  man 
was  in  possession  of  sufficient  land  to  employ  his 
labor,  and  where  the  principle  of  copartnership  had 
become  the  ruling  one  in  the  line  of  industry  he  en- 
gaged in.  A  contract,  under  such  circumstances, 
might  be  intelligently  made,  but  under  monopoly  of 
the  land  and  consequent  capitalization  of  goods  and 
money,  it  would  give  not  the  remotest  intimation  of 
any  rule  which  science  or  equity  can  recognize.  It 
results  not  only  in  giving  an  extremely  low  or  an 
extremely  high  proportion  for  services  of  equal 
utility,  but  it  is  governed  by  no  principle  of  recipro- 
cation, or  even  by  demand  and  supply,  though  often 
by  the  sheerest  arbitrary  will. 

In  treating  of  the  production  of  social  wealth  we 
have  necessarily  referred  to  division  and  exchange, 
as  they  are  connected  with  it.  If  present  division 
is  correct  and  scientific,  then  it  must  be  admitted 
that  production  proceeds  from  capitalization  of 
goods  and  not  from  human  co-operation,  as  I  con- 


PEIYATE    GOODS.  123 

tend.  In  the  natural  sequence,  production  stands 
first,  then  ownership,  or  the  division  of  the  product 
among  the  co-operators.  It  is  not  till  after  the 
goods  have  been  produced  and  the  division  has  taken 
place  that  exchanges  can  take  place ;  because,  till 
then,  no  one  has  anj-thing  to  exchange.  Agreement 
may  be  made,  it  is  true,  in  regard  to  things  in  course 
of  production  or  in  contemplation.  But  it  is  the 
goods,  after  production  and  division  has  taken  place, 
which  are  reall}-  exchanged.  Exchange,  therefore, 
can  have  no  place  in  determining  who  has  produced 
the  goods,  or  how  they  should  be  divided,  since  all 
that  is  decided  before  they  enter  its  circle.  That 
the  prospect  or  opportunity  for  exchanging  may  have 
the  effect  of  stimulating  certain  lines  of  production 
is  true ;  but  it  is  only  when  they  are  produced  and 
the  ownership  determined,  by  whatever  system  of 
division,  that  they  come  under  the  rule  of  the  com- 
mercial principle.  So  that,  however  exact  and  un- 
questionable the  "  science  of  exchanges  "  may  be, 
and  in  proportion  as  it  is  exact,  will  the  question  of 
industrial  production  and  its  ownership  be  beyond 
and  independent  of  it,  and  the  more  important  will 
become  the  problem  of  determining  the  exact  relation 
between  private  goods  and  social  wealth. 


CHAPTEE  IX. 

LAND     OWNEBSHIP. 

The  proper  distribution  and  control  of  the  land  is 
the  most  important  subject  of  a  political  or  econom- 
ical nature  to  which  any  people  can  direct  their 
attention.  Upon  the  accuracy  of  its  solution  de- 
pends the  degree  of  civil  and  social  development 
to  which  they  will  attain.  Politics,  civil  law,  and 
social  economics  will  all  be  shaped  and  colored  by 
the  system  of  land  tenure.  It  is  not  appropriate  to 
the  scope  and  limits  of  this  treatise  to  enter  into  an 
investigation  of  the  various  theories  of  land  owner- 
ship which  have  obtained  in  the  world:  We  can 
only  give  them  a  passing  allusion  in  our  endeavor  to 
ascertain  what  principle  of  law  underlies  them  all, 
and  how  this  has  been  gradually  developed  in  the 
general  history  of  laud  tenure. 

That  originally  the  right  to  enter  and  enjoy  the 
land  Avas  the  common  birthright  of  the  people  of  any 
and  all  countries  is  taken  for  granted,  no  one  con- 
tradicting. Blackstone  says,  "There  is  no  founda- 
tion in  nature  why  a  set  of  words  upon  parchment 
should  conve}'  the  dominion  of  land.  .  .  .  While  the 
earth  continued  not  densely  populated,  it  is  reason- 
able to  suppose  that  all  was  in  common.  Thus  the 
land  was  in  common,  and  no  part  of  it  was  the  per- 
manent   proj^erty   of    any    man   in    particular;   yet 

134 


LAND   OWNEESHIP  125 

whoever  -was  in  possession  or  occupation  of  any  de- 
termined spot  of  it  acquired  for  tlie  time  a  sort  of 
ownership,  from  which  it  woukl  have  been  unjust  and 
contrary  to  the  law  of  nature  to  have  driven  him 
away  b}'  force  ;  but  when  he  quitted  the  use  or  occu- 
pation of  it  another  might  take  possession  of  it  with- 
out injustice  to  anyone." 

Says  John  Locke :  "  The  earth  and  all  that  is 
therein  is  given  men  for  the  support  and  comfort  of 
their  being,  .  .  .  and  nobody  has  originally  a  private 
dominion  exclusively  of  the  rest  of  mankind." 

Say  says :  "  It  would  seem  that  lands  capable  of 
cultivation  ought  to  be  regarded  as  liatural  wealth, 
since  they  are  not  of  human  creation,  but  nature's 
gratuitous  gifts  to  man." 

M.  Ch.  Comte  says  :  "  These  lands  (extended  tracts 
not  yet  'converted  into  individual  property')  which 
consists  mainly  of  forests,  belong  to  the  whole  pop- 
ulation, and  the  government,  which  receives  tlie 
revenues,  uses,  or  ought  to  use  them  in  the  interest 
of  all."  * 

It  is  wholly  unnecessary  to  examine  the  grounds 
which  are  given  by  economists  and  writers  on  civil 
law  as  to  the  basis  of  private  property  in  land,  for 
they  are  so  contradictory  as  to  be  really  self-destruc- 
tive. Possession  remains  possesftion,  and  can  never 
become  properly,  in  the  sense  of  absolute  dominion, 
except  by  positive  statute.  Labor  can  only  claim 
occupanrj/,  and  can  lay  no  claim  to  more  than  the 
usufruct.  If  labor  gave  a  property  title  to  the  land 
in  any  such  absolute  sense,  then  it  Avould  oust  all 

*  ProiKilion  Sixys  of  tliis  rcsorv.'ilion,  "  It  stived  the  telling  of  n  lie." 


126  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

other  proprietorship  than  its  own ;  because,  without 
the  continuous  application  of  labor,  land  has  no  value. 
The  "  right  of  discovery  "  is  not  seriously  advanced 
now,  although  it  was  the  basis  on  which  this  conti- 
nent was  parceled  out.  We  shall  see,  moreover,  that 
private  titles  to  land  have  arisen  in  none  of  the  ways 
which  have  been  relied  on  for  its  justification,  but  in 
a  manner  inconsistent  with  each  and  every  one  of 
these  hypotheses.  Comparatively  late  investigations 
have  proved  beyond  all  question  that  private  prop- 
erty in  land  has  been  developed  in  all  modern 
nations  from  a  collective  ownership.  Sir  Henry  Sum- 
ner Maine,  in  his  "  Village  Communities,"  summarizes 
the  results  of  his  own  investigation,  as  well  as  that  of 
other  recent  authors,  thus  :  "  It  would  seem  that  light 
is  pouring  from  many  quarters  at  once  on  some  of 
the  darkest  passages  in  the  history  of  law  and  of 
society.  To  those  who  knew  how  strong  a  presump- 
tion already  existed  that  individual  property  came 
into  existence  after  a  slow  process  of  change,  by 
which  it  disengaged  itself  from  collective  holdings 
by  families  or  larger  assemblages,  the  evidence  of  a 
primitive  village  system  in  the  Teutonic  and  Scan- 
dinavian countries  had  very  great  interest ;  this  in- 
terest largely  increased  when  England,  long  supposed 
to  have  had  since  the  Norman  Conquest  an  excep- 
tional system  of  property  in  land,  was  shown  to 
exhibit  almost  as  many  traces  of  joint  ownership 
and  common  cultivation  as  the  countries  of  the  North 
of  the  continent ;  but  our  interest  culminates,  I  think, 
when  we  find  that  these  primitive  European  tenures, 
and  this  primitive  European  tillage,  constitute  the 
actual  working  system  of  the  Indian  village  commu- 


LAND   OWNERSHIP  127 

nities.  .  .  •  One  stage  in  tlie  transition  from  col- 
lective to  individual  property  was  reached  Avhen  tlie 
part  of  the  domain  under  cultivation  was  allotted 
among  the  Teutonic  races  to  the  several  families  of 
the  townships  ;  another  was  gained  when  the  sj'stem 
of  'shifting  severalties'  came  to  an  end,  and  each 
family  was  confirmed  for  a  perpetuity  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  its  several  lots  of  land.  But  there  appears 
to  be  no  country  inhabited  by  an  Aryan  race  in  which 
traces  do  not  remain  of  the  ancient  periodical  re- 
distribution. It  has  continued  to  our  day  in  the 
Eussian  villages.  Among  the  Hindoo  villages  there 
are  widely-extended  traditions  of  the  practice,  and 
it  was,  doubtlessly,  the  source  of  certain  usages,  to 
be  hereafter  described,  which  have  survived  to  our 
day  in  England  and  Germany"  (V.  C,  pp.  61,  62, 
81,  82. 

Law,  as  it  practically  affects  society,  has  been  de- 
veloped as  the  result  of  two  tendencies  which  oper- 
ate to  modify,  if  they  do  not  limit,  each  other.  The 
first  is  the  reason  derived  from  experience,  which 
begets  general  consent  to  such  certain  "rules  of 
conduct "  as  are  discovered  to  be  necessary  for  the 
well-being  of  the  family,  village,  or  other  social  ag- 
gregation. The  other  is  the  desire  for  dominion, 
the  assertion  of  the  luill  on  the  part  of  the  individual, 
class,  or  party,  according  to  the  form  of  the  control- 
ling ]iower. 

Tiik;  law,  we  need  hardly  say,  is  that  "rule  of 
action  "  which  conforms  to  justice  and  equity.  "No 
human  laws,"  says  Blackstone,  "are  of  any  validity 
if  contrary  to  the  law  of  nature ;  and  such  of  them  as 
are  valid  derive  all  their  authority,  mediately  or  im- 


128  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

mediately,  from  this  original."  Bat  since  tlie  prog- 
ress of  society  is  one  of  growth,  iu  which  a  knowl- 
edge of  nature's  laws  is  gradually  discovered,  and  still 
more  tardily  api^lied,  we  can  expect  to  find  only  such 
principles  of  law  applied  in  primitive  societies  as  are 
readily  seen  and  comj^rehended.  Under  the  mere 
rule  of  will  we  may  also  espect  to  find  often  utter 
perversion  as  well  as  ignorance  of  tllese  laws. 

History  does  not  enable  us  to  trace  laud  owner- 
ship to  its  primitive  source.  In  the  earliest  stage 
known  to  us,  we  find  the  household  under  control  of 
the  unlimited  authority  of  the  owner,  including  alien 
slaves,  with  power  of  life  and  death  over  all,  not- 
withstanding the  equality  which  existed  between  the 
owner  and  the  numerous  proprietors  of  the  common 
domain. 

The  present  purpose  is  to  inquire  into  the  nature 
of  this  early  system  of  holding.  The  ownership  of 
slaves  had  been  effected  through  ignorance  or  very 
imperfect  application  of  natural  laws,  and  of  that 
complex  social  relation  of  all  human  kind  which  at  a 
later  day  has  been  recognized  and  to  a  certain  extent 
applied  under  civil  rule.  The  testimony  is  conclu- 
sive that  the  form  of  land  ownership  earliest  known 
to  history  was  that  of  a  common  possession.  The 
law  relating  to  this  ownership  has  come  down  to  us 
unchanged,  materially,  through  all  the  revolutions  in 
systems  of  civil  and  political  rule,  and  through  all 
the  mass  of  enactments  and  decrees  wath  which  leg- 
islatures, monarchs,  and  courts  have  encumbered  the 
various  systems  of  jurisprudence.  That  private 
ownership  followed  closely  the  recognition  of  the 
common  right  to  land  there  can  be  little  doubt.     At 


LAND   OWNERSHIP.  129 

first  it  may  be  that  a  community  of  goods  existed 
along  with  communit}'  of  the  ownership  of  the  land. 
But  this  must  have  been  soon  followed  by  the  setting 
oflf  a  mark  for  the  village,  in  which  each  family  had 
a  separate  home.  Over  this  and  the  lot  it  occuj^ied, 
it  had  dominion,  as  nearly  absolute  as  any  right  can 
be.  Then  came  the  arable  mark,  in  which  each 
householder  had  a  lot  in  each  of  three  several  fields ; 
two  for  the  rotated  crops  and  one  for  rest,  or  the 
fallow.  These  lots  were  used  by  the  householder 
for  his  own  and  family's  behoof  ;  but  was  subject  to 
the  control  of  the  community,  w^hich  required  uni- 
formity of  crops  and  of  culture.  The  fallow,  and 
even  the  stubble,  of  these  fields  were  subject  to  be 
pastured  in  common,  as  well  as  the  balance  of  the 
domain,  which  was  embraced  in  the  common  mark. 

It  would  seerh  that  private  occupancy  of  the  land, 
to  the  extent  we  have  seen,  was  nearly  coeval  with 
that  of  private  movable  property,  property  being 
used  not  in  what  economists  and  jurists  term  "  the 
highest  form  of  property,"  but  rather  that  which 
constitutes  possession  or  ownership  merely.  That 
separate  holding  should  follow  common  ownership 
was  inevitable.  Otherwise  society  would  have  be- 
come petrified,  and  all  progress  arrested.  There  is  a 
tendency  in  the  communit}'  to  develop  a  despotic 
leadership.  This,  in  early  times,  took  on  a  form  of 
hereditary  rule,  even  where  the  elective  franchise 
was  retained.  11.  B.  D.  Morier  shows*  that  there 
existed  a  strong  tendency  among  the  Teutonic  races 
to  convert  a  " jmhlic  dniy  to  a  private   right,"  and 


♦Agrarian  Legislation  of  PniSHia. 


130  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

that  monarcliy  and  private  dominion  grew  up  from 
the  same  root,  so  nearly  related  that  it  is  difficult  to 
say  where  the  one  becomes  distinct  from  the  other. 

From  the  village  community  colonies  were  formed, 
and  occupied  unappropriated  lands,  the  mother  vil- 
lage assuming  and  exercising  a  certain  control  over 
the  daughter  villages.  This,  in  connection  with 
military  authority  and  rights  of  conquest,  resulted  in 
the  formation  of  the  manor ;  and,  finally,  in  the 
medieval  feudalism  from  which  the  Ensjlish  land 
system  particularly  has  been  derived.  In  accordance 
with  the  monarchical  assumption,  a  legal  fiction  was 
invented  to  give  validity  to  usurpation  of  the  do- 
minion of  the  laud,  by  the  custodians  of  popular 
rights,  in  flagrant  betrayal  and  violation  of  their 
trusts,  and  all  titles  were,  through  this  pretense,  de- 
rived from  the  crown. 

When  this  country  declared  its  independence  of 
Great  Britain,  the  proprietorship,  as  regards  the 
public  domain,  was  assumed  to  be  in  the  whole 
people.  We  see  now  that,  so  far  as  dominion  over 
the  land  is  concerned,  the  political  and  civil  basis 
is  the  same.  A  sovereign  j^resupj^oses  a  domain. 
Sovereignty  and  proprietorship  of  the  land  are 
inseparable.  So  that,  in  parting  with  the  pro- 
prietorship of  the  land,  the  people  have  virtually 
abdicated  their  sovereignty,  or  rather  our  jDublic 
servants  have  betrayed  their  trusts,  and  have  con- 
verted what  was  a  public  into  a  private  right.  And 
our  courts,  instead  of  enunciating  and  applying  the 
natural  laws  of  the  subject,  have  deferred  to  the 
English  common  law  and  the  Roman  civil  law,  both 
of  which,  tlirougli  forced  interpretations,  as  regards 


LAND   OWNERSHIP.  131 

tlie  dominion  over  tlie  laud,  are  but  a  perpetuation 
of  tlie  barbaric  and  brutal  usurj)ations  of  a  semi- 
savage  age. 

Political  equality,  as  well  as  equality  before  the 
law,  are  practically  impossible  unless  the  common 
riijcht  to  the  land  is  recoo-nized  and  secured.  The 
conservative  instinct  which,  under  popular  forms, 
sought  to  confine  the  elective  franchise  to  real  pro- 
prietors, was  legitimate  under  the  state  of  the  land 
system,  as  it  has  been  allowed- to  exist.  The  mistake 
consisted  in  the  admission  of  a  system  which  per- 
mits any  person  to  be  deprived  of  his  portion  in  the 
ownership  of  the  land  who  has  a  voice  in  the  direc- 
tion of  public  affairs.  But  we  wish,  now,  to  look  at 
the  results  which  followed  the  application  of  labor 
under  what  appears  to  have  been  the  primitive  form 
of  ownership,  equal  rights  of  occupancy,  even  where 
separate  holdings  had  arisen.  In  the  simple  com- 
munit}',  each  contributed  according  to  his  ability, 
and  received  from  the  common  fund  according  to  his 
need ;  but  as  soon  as  separate  property  was  recog- 
nized in  movables,  separate  holdings  followed  as  a 
necessary  consequence,  especially  in  respect  to  so 
much  land  as  was  necessary  to  the  private  home. 
The  great  domain  was  still  common.  The  arable 
mark,  even,  was  subject  to  the  control  of  the  common 
will,  as  to  the  kind  and  rotation  of  crops.  Under 
feudalism  and  the  "divine  right"  the  crown  lauds 
still  remained  common,  and  it  is  only  within  a  cen- 
tury or  two,  under  "  tlie  Enclosure  Acts "  of  Par- 
liament, tliat  in  England,  even,  the  common  or  crown 
lands  were  wholly  given  u])  to  the  dominion  of  a 
class  to  the  complete  exclusion  of  the  people. 


132  SOCIAL   WEALTH. 

Uncier  equal  ownership  of  the  land,  doubtless, 
"  the  laborer  received  the  whole  product  of  his 
labor."  This  is  what  Adam  Smith  calls  the  "Natu- 
ral Rate  of  Wages."  Ricardo,  on  the  contrary,  de- 
fines the  natural  rate  to  be  the  minimum  necessary 
to  his  support,  and  to  enable  him  to  rear  offspring. 
This  latter  rate  evidently  apj)lies  to  the  laborer  only, 
who  has  been  despoiled  of  his  heritage  in  the  soil, 
and  hence  subjected  to  a  forced  competition,  since  it 
would  be  impossible  to  reduce  one  to  that  condition 
who  held  laud.  His  natural  wages  are  now,  under 
this  usurpation,  the  same  as  what  to  his  master  is 
the  expense  of  a  chattel  slave.  The  only  object  of 
alluding  to  this  question  here  is  to  emphasize  what 
really  the  position  of  the  laborer  becomes  thus  di- 
vorced from  his  natural  heritage.  It  is  of  no  impor- 
tance as  to  which  is  right.  Smith  or  Ricardo,  since  of 
the  independent  worker,  upon  his  own  acres,  it  might 
be  said  that  the  minimum  expense  of  his  living  was 
the  natural  cost  of  his  labor,  and  what  he  realized 
over  that  was  profit.  But  what  is  of  importance,  in 
any  system  of  division  with  the  least  pretension  to 
accuracy,  is  that  what  went  to  the  laborer  under  a 
common  ownership  of  the  land  was  the  whole  product 
of  his  industry.  And  upon  this  question  there  is  and 
can  be  no  dispute. 

Combination  in  labor  and  reciprocal  exchange  of 
services  furnish  the  key  to  all  social  or  human  ad- 
vancement. In  the  division  of  the  results  of  such 
associated  labor,  products  would  be  awarded  propor- 
tionally to  labor  performed.  This  applies  to  fami- 
lies, which  constitute  the  social  unit.  As  individuals 
within  the  family,  it  can  only  apply,  of  course,  to 


LAND   OWNERSHIP.  133 

those  who  are  able  to  work,  the  children,  to  a  certain 
age,  being  a  charge  to  their  parents,  or  in  a  broader 
community,  to  the  community  itself. 

Admitting,  as  we  must,  that  all  had  originally 
equal  rights  of  access  to.  the  earth,  and  that  no  one 
possessed  any  right  to  dispossess  or  prevent  another, 
we  are  unable  to  find  justification  for  any  law  or 
custom  which  attempts  to  exclude  a  single  member 
of  the  human  family  from  a  share  in  the  common 
domain.  Whatever  may  have  been  held  in  barbaric 
days,  as  to  the  "  law  of  the  stronger,"  "  the  rights  of 
the  victor,"  etc.,  no  such  right  of  dispossession  can 
be  pleaded  now.  Whatever  may  be  claimed  as  to  the 
surrender  by  the  voluntary  act  of  the  individual, 
though  I  deem  this  right  to  a  place  upon  the  earth 
inalienable  and  indefeasible,  tlie  right  of  the  child 
can,  in  no  manner,  be  transferred,  forfeited,  or  im- 
perilled by  any  act  of  the  father,  nor  its  relation  to 
the  land,  or  to  society,  be  afi'ected  in  any  way  what- 
ever. This  tenancy  of  the  whole  people  is  not  only 
a  common  tenanc}-,  but  to  each  person  it  is  a  life  and 
only  a  life  tenancy,  into  which  man  "  enters  "  at  his 
birth,  and  "quits"  at  liis  death..  To  deed  away 
such  a  right  is  impossible.  Man  may  abandon  a  cer- 
tain separate  holding,  and  another  may  properly 
occupy  it,  but  he  cannot  alienate  his  own  "common 
riglit,"  Avliicli  is  but  for  life,  much  less  dispose  of 
that  of  liis  children  and  of  their  children,  to  all 
generations.  In  neither  law  nor  equity  can  a  parent 
dispose  of  tlie  patrimony  of  his  minor  child,  certainly 
not  of  tliose  wlio  are  unborn.  This  patrimony  is 
held  as  a  trust  for  posterity  under  wluitever  form  of 
government,  law,  or  administration,  and  no  betrayal 


134  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

of  it  by  the  parent,  executor,  or  state  can  hold  against 
the  right  of  the  individual.  No  acquiescence  of  a 
minor  or  ward  can  establish  a  right,  or  work  a  for- 
feiture ;  and  no  defense  can  be  made  to  this  great 
wrong,  that  the  people  have  submitted  to  it.  On  the 
arrival  of  every  minor  at  majority  he  has  the  un- 
doubted right  to  recover. 

"We  are  able  now  to  judge  of  the  nature  of  these 
usurpations,  and  to  trace  their  rise  and  progress,  in 
placing  the  control  of  the  land  into  the  hands  of  a 
class,  and  in  excluding  the  mass  of  mankind  from  all 
interest  in  the  patrimony  which  nature  has  provided 
in  abundance  for  all.  The  gradual  growth  of  exclu- 
sive ownership  of  hereditary  rights  and  settlements 
are  traced  with  great  care  by  a  number  of  writers, 
among  whom  are  Nasse,  Von  Maurer,  Laveleye,  and 
Maine.  They  show  that  in  the  feudal  system  the 
relation  of  the  serf  to  the  land  was  recognized, 
although  a  distinction  was  made  between  him  and 
the  personal  chattel  or  slave,  who,  as  an  alien,  had  no 
recognized  claim  upon  the  laud.  In  a  number  of 
ways,  however,  the  right,  not  only  of  the  tenant  but 
of  the  agricultural  laborer,  to  a  home  upon  the  soil 
and  a  share  of  its  productions,  was  recognized  from 
the  earliest  history  of  agricultural  communities  to 
the  disappearance  of  the  feudal  system  in  the  modern 
capitalism.  Feudalism  resulted  as  the  natural  out- 
growth from  the  village  to  the  manor,  and  thence  to 
the  state.  In  its  application  to  the  territory  of  the 
Roman  empire,  it  was  arbitrarily  applied  by  con- 
quest, the  old  land  holders  accepting  their  lands 
back  again  on  the  most  favorable  terms  they  could 
make  with  the  conqueror.     But  under  the  system  as 


LAND   OWNERSHIP.  135 

it  had  more  gradnall}'  developed  in  Germany,  Scan- 
dinavia, and  Britain,  the  rights  of  the  people  were 
more  gradually  absorbed.  To  the  very  last  the  land- 
lord holding  "  land  from  the  crown  could  not  substi- 
tute another  person  for  himself  at  his  own  will  and 
pleasure  without  the  consent,  not  only  of  the  crown, 
hut  of  Ms  oivn  vassals."  "A  strict  military  feud  was 
by  its  very  essence  inalienable,  but  gradually  this 
rigor  was  relaxed,  and  feuds  were  created  alienable." 
"  In  process  of  time  the  relation  of  lord  and  vassal 
in  feudal  law  changed  from  a  bilateral  contract,  in 
which  there  were  rights  and  duties  on  both  sides  to 
the  simple  relation  of  the  modern  landlord  and  ten- 
ant, or  a  unilateral  contract,  where  there  is  the 
simple  right  on  one  side  to  demand  rent,  and  the 
simjjle  duty,  on  the  other  side,  to  pay  it."  This 
change  from  a  hvo-sided  to  a  07ie-sided  contract  was 
due,  as  Mr.  Macleod  shows  in  the  context  to  the 
above  quotations,  out  of  respect  to  the  commercial 
spirit,  so  that  "  estates  in  land  were  made  freely 
salable  and  transferable  without  the  consent  of  the 
tenant  "  (Elements  of  Economics,  §  38).  Morier  de- 
scribes the  first  period  of  the  Teutonic  community 
"  as  the  period  of  land  otvnership  and  equal  possession, 
in  which  the  freeman  is  a  'miles'  in  virtue  of  being  a 
land  oiuner.  The  second  period  can  be  described  as 
the  period  of  la^id  tenure,  and  of  unequal  possession,  in 
which  the  feudal  tenant  is  not  a  '  miles '  in  virtue  of 
being  a  land  owner,  but  a  land  holder  in  virtue  of 
being  a  'miles.'"  Th(!  change  herein  indicated 
marks  the  progi-ess  of  the  development  of  the  mili- 
tary spirit  and  of  subjection  to  its  sway  of  tlio  rela- 
tion between  tlu;  land  and  the  cultivator.    The  owner 


136  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

of  the  manor  in  each  township  became  the  president 
of  the  township  court,  "  so  that  whosoever  owned  the 
manor  exercised  the  office  of  judge,  and  whoever  ex- 
ercises the  office  owns  the  manor;"  and  to  this  he 
ascribes  "  the  origin  of  manorial  rights,  which  after- 
wards become  the  keystone  of  the  entire  land  system 
in  feudal  times,  and  to  this  day  affect  in  an  important 
manner  the  agrarian  relations  of  many  important 
countries  in  Europe,  England  included."  This  manor, 
he  goes  on  to  show,  received  dues  and  services  from 
the  other  manors  in  the  township,  "  even  ivhere  these 
manors  are  the  allodial  property  of  freemen."  He  con- 
siders feudalism  to  have  been  made  up  of  Teutonic 
and  Roman  elements,  the  Teutonic  idea  of  the  corre- 
lation between  possession  of  land  and  military  serv- 
ice, and  the  tendency  to  change  public  office  into 
private  right,  to  transmit  such  rights  by  inheritance, 
and  to  regard  honorable  personal  services  rendered 
to  the  sovereign ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  of  the 
Roman  ideas  of  law  regarding  "  beneficial  uses,"  and 
of  dominion  in  proprietorship  of  the  land.  The  later 
period,  marked  by  the  agrarian  legislation  of  Prussia 
during  the  present  century,  he  calls  "  the  return  to 
free  oionersldp  with  iinequal possession."  I  must  quote 
at  some  length  his  description  of  the  process  by 
which  the  land-holding  peasant  was  transformed  into 
a  serf  in  Germany : 

"As  population  increased,  more  and  more  town- 
ships were  settled  on  the  common  lands,  the  propor- 
tion between  pastoral  as  compared  with  agricultural 
wealth  decreased,  and  the  ordinary  freeman  was 
gradually  reduced  to  a  little  more  than  what  his  lot 
in  the  arable  mark  brought  him  in.     Simultaneously 


LAND   OWNERSHIP.  137 

with  tins  diminntion  of  his  means  rose  the  cost  of 
his  equi^^ment  for  the  field,  and  the  strain  put  upon 
his  resources  by  having  to  maintain  himself  during 
the  long  summer  and  winter  campaigns  which  were 
now  the  rule.  Soldiering  under  Charlemagne  against 
the  Saracens  in  Spain,  or  the  Huns  on  the  Danube, 
was  different  work  from  an  autumn  raid  across  the 
Rhine.  Hence  partly  by  his  poverty,  partly  by  the 
pressure,  often  amounting  to  force,  brought  to  bear 
upon  him  by  the  lords  who  wished  to  increase  their 
demesne  lands,  the  free  owner  was  little  bj  little  re- 
duced to  the  condition  of  an  unfree  holder.  By 
commending  himself  to  a  superior  lord — that  is,  by 
surrendering  the  dominium  directum  of  his  allodium, 
and  receiving  back  dominium  idile — the  freeman  lost 
his  personal  rights,  but  obtained  in  return  protection 
against  the  state,  i.e.,  against  the  public  claims  that 
could  be  made  upon  him  in  virtue  of  his  being  a  full 
member  of  the  political  community.  According  to 
the  nature  of  his  tenure,  he  had  to  render  military 
service  (no  longer  as  a  national  duty,  but  as  a  per- 
sonal debt)  to  his  superior,  and  in  return  Avas  main- 
tained by  his  lord  m  hen  in  the  field ;  or,  if  his  tenure 
was  a  purely  agricultural  one,  ...  he  was  exempt 
from  military  service,  and  only  rendered  agricultural 
service." 

"  In  this  way,  as  generation  followed  upon  gener- 
atif)n,  the  small  free  allodial  owners  disappeared,  and 
were  replaced  ]>y  niifrec  holders.  But  the  memory 
of  tlif'.ir  first  estate  long  lived  among  the  traditions 
of  tlie  German  peasantry,  and  it  required  centurif^s 
bf'forfi  tlie  free  ctjininunities,  who,  out  of  dire  neces- 
sity, had  by  an  act  of  their  own  surrendered  their 


138  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

liberties  into  the  hands  of  the  lord  of  the  manor, 
sank  to  the  level  of  the  servile  class,  settled  upon 
their  demesnes  proper  by  the  lords  of  the  soih" 

"In  the  peasants'  war,  which  followed  Luther's 
Reformation,  he  made  a  desperate  attempt  to  recover 
his  lost  liberties  ;  and  in  the  record  of  grievances 
upon  the  basis  which  he  was  ready  to  treat,  he  showed 
how  accurate  was  his  recollection  of  the  past,  and 
how  well  he  knew  the  points  on  which  the  territorial 
lords  had  robbed  him  of  his  rights." 

The  demands  of  the  peasants  were  deemed  "  mod- 
erate "  even  by  the  historians  of  their  times  ;  and  if 
in  the  course  of  the  struggle  their  unorganized  bodies 
sometimes  committed  great  excesses,  it  was  generally 
in  retaliation  of  the  infamous  cruelties  practiced 
against  them  by  the  brutal  and  unprincipled  Von 
Waldburg  and  less  significant  leaders  of  the  aristoc- 
racy, who  spared  no  age  or  sex,  and  who  made  treaties 
with  the  purpose  of  repudiating  them  and  entrap- 
ping the  too-confiding  peasants.  Their  demands 
were  substantially:  "  The  free  election  of  their  parish 
clergy ;  the  ajDpropriation  of  the  tithes  of  grain,  after 
competent  maintenance  of  the  parish  clergy,  to  the 
support  of  the  poor  and  to  purposes  of  general  utility ; 
the  abolition  of  serfdom,  and  of  the  exclusive  hunting 
and  fishing  rights  of  the  nobles ;  the  restoration  to 
the  commvmity  of  forests,  fields,  and  meadows,  which 
the  secular  and  ecclesiastical  lords  had  appropriated 
to  themselves ;  release  from  arbitrary  augmentation 
and  multiplication  of  services,  duties,  and  rents,  and 
the  equal  administration  of  justice." 

But  all  this  moderation  was  of  no  avail,  and  after 


LAND   OWNERSHIP. 


139 


great  sacrifice  of  life  in  the  struggle,  tlie  lot  of  the 
peasant  became  harder  than  ever. 

"  The  Thirty  Years'  War  gave  the  final  blow.  With 
exceptions  here  and  there  the  tillers  of  the  soil  be- 
came a  half-servile  caste,  and  were  more  and  more 
estranged  from  the  rest  of  the  community  until,  with 
the  humanitarian  revival  at  the  close  of  the  last 
century,  they  became  to  philanthropists  objects  of 
the  same  kind  of  interest  and  inquiry  which  negroes 
have  been  to  the  same  class  of  persons  in  our  day."  * 

This  description  may  serve  in  a  general  way  to 
portray  the  courses  by  which  man's  natural  birth- 
right in  the  soil  has  been  usurped  in  every  land  by  a 
domineering  class  who,  sooner  or  later,  sought  the 
cover  cf  pretended  law  to  sanction  unlawful  acts,  so 
that  they  might  enjoy  quiet  possession  of  dominion 
obtained  by  A'iolence. 

In  the  Russian  S5-stem,  we  have  a  later  develop- 
ment still,  corresponding  in  its  essential  features  to 
the  earlier  feudal  form.  There  the  reduction  of 
agricultural  labor  to  bondage  was  effected  in  com- 
paratively modern  times.  It  is  true  slaves  were  held 
at  an  earlier  date  by  the  Czar  and  the  nobles  of  his 
court ;  but  those  slaves,  or  their  progenitors,  were 
captives  taken  in  war.  The  noblemen  who  owned 
these  slaves  were  servants  of  the  crown,  and  not 
land  holders  or  even  vassals  owing  allegiance  for  the 
tenure  of  land.  Often  they  were  allowed,  however, 
an  allotment  of  the  crown-land  to  be  tilled  by  their 
slaves,  and  their  service  to  the  crown  was  ])aid  in 
that  way.     "  Such  nobles  as  did  not  own  slaves  were 

♦SyHU;m8of  Ij;iii(1  Tenure  in  Ynnnns  Countries,  pp.  210,  2r)0. 


140  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

sometimes  paid  by  the  Czar's  abandoning  to  tliem 
the  yiekl  of  the  taxes  due  to  the  Czar  by  the  peas- 
antry of  one  or  more  villages.  But  such  an  arrange- 
ment did  not  legally  impair,  in  the  slightest  degree, 
the  liberty  of  these  peasants.  They  remained  the 
free  children  of  the  Czar,  entitled  legally  to  break  off 
their  household,  and  to  separate  from  their  village 
community  and  to  join  another  whenever  they  liked." 
"  The  Russian  peasants  of  those  times  were  nobody's 
servants  but  the  Czar's,  like  everybody  else  in  the 
empire."  These  quotations  are  from  "  The  Eussian 
Agrarian  Legislation  of  1861,"  by  Julius  Fancher, 
whose  conclusions  I  must  give  in  brief.  The  form 
of  tenure  and  tillage  of  the  land  was  that  of  joint 
husbandry  of  the  whole  village,  that  and  not  the 
family  being  the  social  unit,  and  standing  under 
patriarchal  rule.  "  Movable  property  alone  was  in- 
dividual ;  immovable,  the  land,  at  least,  was  com- 
mon." Colonization  was  carried  on,  village  giving 
birth  to  other  villages,  which  in  their  turn  became 
self-sustaining,  and  gave  birth  to  still  others. 

With  this  system  of  organization  and  extension  of 
villages  is  to  be  considered  the  savage  drama  of 
political  life  of  the  Russians,  the  influence  of  a  dom- 
inant church,  and  external  warfare.  Military  gov- 
ernment in  time  having  been  iutroduced,  and  a 
consequent  system  of  taxation,  the  same  contests 
arose  between  private  factions,  as  to  who  should 
possess  the  legalized  prey,  as  constitute  the  political 
part  of  the  history  of  other  nations.  With  the 
growth  of  a  petty  nobility,  during  the  struggle  of 
Ivan  III.  and  Ivan  IV.  the  Terrible,  to  establish  the 
empire,   the  nobles  were  rewarded  with  the   yield 


LAND   OWNERSHIP.  141 

of  taxes  of  such  villapjes  as  had  been  allotted  them. 
"  Villages  not  being  disposed  of  in  sucli  way  seem  to 
have  remained  free  Tillages  till  the  later  years  of 
Ivan  TV.,  who  seems  to  have  commenced  the  prac- 
tice largel}^  resorted  to  in  later  times,  of  turning 
crown  villages  into  villages  belonging  to  the  Czar, 
not  as  sovereign  of  the  country,  but  as  landed  pro- 
prietor. Such  villages,  peopled  by  prisoners  of  war 
and  their  offspring,  the  slaves  of  the  Czar,  must  have 
always  existed.  .  .  .  But  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  Ivan  IV.,  in  designating  by  a  legislative  act 
which  villages  were  henceforward  to  be  considered 
as  state  property  {Liemsddiia),  and  which  as  prop- 
erty of  the  Czar  {Opr  if  china),  did  so  for  the  purpose 
of  appropriating  what  was  not  his  own." 

"  The  changes  effected  amounted  to  this,  that  a 
very  great  number  of  villages  having  been  formerly 
free  communities,  merely  paying  taxes  to  the  state, 
had  been  turned  into  estates  of  the  Czar  and  of  the 
nobility,  on  which  the  peasantry  had  to  pay  rent. 
The  amount  payable  remaining  unaltered,  and  the 
person  to  whom  it  was  to  be  paid  remaining  the 
same,  the  peasantry,  perhaps,  did  not  even  become 
aware  of  the  change ;  they  may  have  considered 
their  village  as  a  little  socialistic  and  patriarchal 
republic,  just  as  the  bees  in  the  hive  are  not  aware 
that  they  have  other  masters  besides  their  queen." 
But  they  were  soon  made  aware  that  their  ancient 
liberties  had  departed.  An  imperial  ulrtse  was  pub- 
lisliful  forbidding  the  peasants  to  quit  their  village 
without  a  passport,  and  ordaining  that  every  peasant 
found  wandering  about  tlie  country  without  •one 
properly  signed  sliould  bo  sent  IkicIc  in  irons  to  his 


142  SOCIAL  WEALTH.  . 

villa^^e,  and  punished  for  having  left  without  per- 
mission. Though  under  pretense  of  preventing 
vagrancy,  this  ukase  was  to  prevent  a  loss  of  the 
power  to  raise  the  rent,  which  increasing  population 
Avould  give. 

"  The  decisive  blow  had  fallen.  It  did  not  at  once 
bring  about  its  final  results — compulsory  labor  of 
whatever  kind  the  master  demands  from  his  slave — 
but  it  contained  it  in  the  germ,  and  the  development 
was  rapid.  The  first  and  most  important  conse- 
quence was  that  colonization  was  checked  for  a  long 
time.  .  .  .  The  whole  seventeenth  century  shows  the 
heart  of  the  Kussian  peasant  still  palpitating.  The 
enshrined  spirit  of  liberty  asserts  itself  in  religious 
sectarian  movements,  in  agrarian  risings,  in  bold 
brigandage,  under  the  seductive  form  of  free  Cossack 
life.  It  was  reserved  for  the  eighteenth  century  to 
consummate  the  work.  The  harmless  and  gentle 
villagers,  who,  for  the  love  of  wife,  child,  brother, 
sister,  and  neighbors,  had  conquered  the  uncongenial 
eastern  plain  of  Europe  for  civilization,  now  disap- 
pear as  working  agents  from  the  historical  records 
of  their  country ;  they  have  become  mere  tools  to 
work  with,  mere  matter  to  be  worked  upon." 

That  in  England,  as  well  as  among  the  other  na- 
tions, private  ownership  of  land  owed  its  existence 
to  the  betrayal  of  public  trusts  may  be  seen  from 
the  lavish  manner  in  which  its  kings  distributed  the 
public  or  crown  lands. 

Macaulay  says  :  "  There  can  be  now  no  doubt  that 
the  sovereign  was  by  the  old  policy  of  the  realm 
con3Pj3eteut  to  give  or  let  the  domain  of  the  crown  in 
such  manner  as  seemed  good  to  him.     No  statute 


LAND   OWNERSHIP.  143 

defined  the  length  of  tlie  term  which  he  might  grant, 
or  the  amount  of  the  rent  which  he  must  reserve." 
"  For  a  brace  of  hawks  to  be  delivered  to  his  falconer, 
or  a  napkin  of  fine  linen,  he  might  part  with  a  forest 
extending  over  a  hundred  square  miles."  He  says 
such  acts  were  common,  not  only  as  late  as  the  time 
of  the  Stuarts,  but  that  their  example  was  followed 
by  William  of  Orange. 

That  the  idea  of  common  ownership  of  the  land 
held  a  prominent  place  in  the  common  mind  of  Eng- 
land is  shown  by  the  fact  that  the  early  emigrants  to 
the  American  colonies,  who  were  composed  mostly 
of  the  class  of  yeomanr}',  organized  themselves  into 
village  communities  to  cultivate  the  soil.  "  The 
General  Court  granted  a  tract  of  land  to  a  company 
of  persons,"  and  it  was  held  in  common.  The  com- 
pany assigned  house  lots,  then  tracts  of  meadow 
land.  Pasture  and  woodland  remained  in  common. 
In  1660  the  General  Court  enacted  a  law  confining 
"commonage  for  wood,  timber,  or  herbage"  to  those 
houses  "  already  in  being,  or  [which]  shall  be  erected 
with  the  consent  of  the  town."  It  was  this,  or  sim- 
ilar restrictions,  which  gave  "the  commoners"  in 
New  England  and  New  York  a  degree  of  aristocratic 
power  which  extended  itself  far  into  this  century, 
and  gave  color  to  many  titles  to  land  which  were 
destitute  of  legal,  as  well  as  of  moral,  validity.  The 
process  of  usurpation  has  been  going  on  with  or 
witliout  statute  law,  and  often  in  open  violation  of  it. 
Our  national  history  in  regard  to  the  disposal  of  our 
public  domain  has  l)een  scarcely  more  than  a  series 
of  usui-j)ati()iis  —  grants  to  railroad  cor]X)rati()nH; 
soldiers'  bounty  warrants ;  a  device  to  furnish  the 


14A  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

market  with  a  script  for  gambling  in  lands ;  donations 
to  the  states  for  colleges  and  educational  purposes,  etc. 
But  this  is  but  a  part  of  the  system  which  is  lead- 
ing our  nation  headlong  in  the  path  trod  by  ancient 
Rome  two  thousand  years  ago.  Like  her  patricians, 
the  capitalists  of  our  time  are  getting  control  of  our 
domain  "legally,  if  they  can,''  but  getting  it. 

By  the  statements  furnished  by  Mr.  Secretary 
Teller  to  the  House  Committee  recently,  million 
after  million  of  acres  of  the  public  lands  are  being 
fenced  in  by  cattle  companies  and  "ranch  com- 
panies "  to  the  exclusion  of  those  who  desire  to 
settle  them  under  the  Homestead  law.  We  are  told 
that  some  of  these  companies  are  controlled  by  for- 
eign capitalists  exclusively,  among  which  are  the 
Arkansas  Cattle  Company  and  the  Prairie  Cattle 
Company  (Scottish),  each  of  which  has  fenced  in 
more  than  a  million  of  acres.  Already  from  thirty 
to  fifty  millions  of  acres  are  said  to  have  been  thus 
seized.  It  is  true  that  Congress  has  passed  a  law 
making  such  things  "  a  misdemeanor  ;"  but  such  law 
can  hardly  have  retroactive  efiect.  It  will  at  utmost 
be  attempted  to  enforce  it  only  when  parties  feeling 
personally  aggrieved  shall  make  complaint,  and  then 
the  rich  companies  can  put  off  action  indefinitely  by 
the  employment  of  learned  and  influential  counsel. 
In  time  "  possession  "  will  give  them  title,  and  the 
courts,  although  they  have  violated  the  law,  will  de- 
fend them  in  their  claims  to  the  lands  as  vested 
rights,  as  tliey  have  already  done  in  cases  of  tlie  rail- 
roads against  the  poor  and  uninfluential  settler.  It 
was  in  ways  quite  analogous  to  what  is  thus  going  on 
before  our  eyes  that  the  Latifundia  of  Eome  arose 


LAND  OWNEKSHIP.  145 

and  crushed  the  Eoman  civilization  through  corrupt 
j^erversion  of  fundamental  law. 

In  a  communication  to  the  A^orfh  American  Revieio, 
a  year  or  more  ago,  Mr.  George  W.  Julian,  who  had 
been  Chairman  of  House  Committee  on  Public  Lands, 
charged  the  Congress,  Federal  Court,  and  Adminis- 
tration with  having  pursued  a  most  reckless  if  not 
corrupt  course  in  regard  to  the  disposal  of  the  jDublic 
lands.  Mr.  Ex-Secretary  Schurz,  feeling  personally 
aggrieved  thereby,  replied,  attempting  to  show  that 
he  was  free  from  censure,  and  charging  back  the 
fault  upon  Mr.  Julian,  and  the  Congress  of  which,  at 
the  time,  he  was  a  member.  But  they  did  not  dis- 
agree as  to  the  general  tendency  of  the  government 
to  facilitate  the  alienation  of  the  lands  and  to  aid  and 
protect  the  capitalistic  monopoly  of  the  public  do- 
main. They  only  differed  on  the  question  as  to 
which  of  the  two  was  more  culpable,  for  a  state  of 
things  both  acknowledged  to  be  scandalous.  Yet, 
under  our  land  system,  titles  so  obtained,  or  in  any 
way  obtained,  are  under  present  rulings  and  pur- 
chased interpretations  destined  to  give  dominion  over 
the  laud  ''forever,''  to  the  exclusion  and  impoverish- 
ment of.  the  people  in  all  future  time. 

The  lioman  law,  in  regard  to  land,  has  been  gen- 
erally supposed  to  favor  absolute  dominion,  unlim- 
ited in  extent,  to  the  private  holder.  The  agrarian 
laws  of  the  kin^s,  and  of  the  consuls  and  tribunes 
under  the  repulilic,  were  sujjposed  to  be  "  associated 
with  the  idea  of  the  abolition  of  property  in  land,  or 
at  least  of  a  new  distiibution  of  it."  Tliis  latter 
supposition  long  continued  to  furnish  apparent  jus- 
tification  for    the    o]ir)robrium   which    ai)ologists    of 


146  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

class  domination  and  even  scholars  songlit  to  cast 
upon  that  most  just  and  patriotic  measure,  until 
Niebuhr  pointed  out  that  the  purpose  of  the  agrarian 
laws  was  not  to  interfere  with  private  property  in 
the  land,  but  to  effect  an  equitable  distribution  of 
the  public  lands  among  the  citizens  of  Rome.  It  was 
the  use  which  had  been  made  of  those  lands  by  the 
military  or  civil  rulers,  or  by-  wealthy  or  influential 
patricians,  through  the  oversight,  connivance,  or  neg- 
lect of  those  rulers,  that  rendered  the  agrarian  laws 
so  difiicult  to  enforce,  and  raised  up  such  deadly 
hostility  to  their  application.  Dr.  Thomas  Arnold, 
following  Niebuhr,  says:  "It  was  the  practice  at 
Rome,  and,  doubtless,  in  other  states  in  Italy,  to  allow 
individuals  to  occupy  such  lands,  and  to  enjoy  all 
the  benefits  of  them,  on  condition  of  paying  to  the 
state  the  tithe  of  the  produce,  as  an  acknowledg- 
ment that  the  state  was  the  proprietor  of  the  land, 
and  the  individual  merely  the  occupier.  Now,  al- 
though, the  land  was  undoubtedly  the  property  of 
the  state,  and  although  the  occupiers  of  it  were,  in 
relation  to  the  state,  mere  tenants-at-will,  yet  it  is  in 
human  nature  that  a  long,  undisturbed  possession 
should  give  a  feeling  of  ownership  ;  the  moj-e  so  as 
while  the  state's  claim  lay  dormant,  the  possessor 
was,  in  fact,  proprietor,  and  the  land  would  thus  be 
repeatedly  passing  by  regular  sale  from  one  occupier 
to  another." 

The  idea  of  a  citizen  and  that  of  a  land  holder 
were  inseparable,  and  as  new  citizens  were  admitted, 
they  had  to  each  receive  a  portion  of  the  unallotted 
public  domain.  This  could  be  done  only  by  dispos- 
sessing  those   who   had   taken  possession  of   these 


LAND   OWNERSHIP.  147 

lands  under  tlie  custom,  which  it  seems  was  confined 
to  the  old  burghers  or  jiatricians,  no  other  class 
being  allowed  to  occupy  them.  This,  with  the  tend- 
ency of  the  larger  possessions  to  swallow  up  the 
'smaller  ones,  increased  the  numbers  of  the  landless, 
whose  destitution  and  degradation  so  greatly  in- 
creased that  some  measures  were  necessary  to  be 
taken  to  prevent  anarchy  and  the  dissolution  of  the 
state. 

It  is  said  that  most  of  the  kings  introduced  agra- 
rian laws;  "the  good  king,"  Servius  TuUius,  falling 
a  victim  to  the  hostility  of  the  nobles,  in  consequence 
of  his  introduction  of  one  Spurius  Cassius,  a  consul, 
proposed  a  law  to  give  the  citizen  land  out  of  the 
public  domain,  and  to  enforce  the  payment  of  the 
stipulated  rent  by  the  large  land  holders,  or  occu- 
piers ;  but  as  soon  as  his  year  of  consulship  had  ex- 
pired, he  was  falsely  accused  of  trying  to  make  him- 
self king,  condemned,  scourged,  and  beheaded,  and 
his  house  razed  to  the  ground.  This  has  been 
aptly  and  justly  termed  "  an  atrocious  judicial  mur- 
der.'' 

The  same  law  was  attempted  to  be  put  in  operation 
by  the  Tribunes  Macilius  and  Metilius,  but  without 
success.  Later,  Marcus  Manlius,  a  patriotic  and  noble 
patrician,  made  an  eftbrt  to  promote  an  agrarian  law, 
and  though  he  had  saved  the  capital  during  the 
Gallic  siege  by  liis  iiiti'cpidity,  was  hurled  from  the 
Tarpeian  Ilock,  on  a  charge  like  tliat  against  Spurius 
Cassius,  equally  groundless  and  base.  In  3G7  B.C., 
after  a  violent  contest  of  eleven  years,  an  agrarian 
law  was  y)assed,  through  the  efforts  of  Licinius  Stolus, 
but  though  proving  of  great  value  was  soon  overborne. 


148  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

Tlie  story  of  the  Gracchi  is  too  familiar  to  be  re- 
peated here.  Their  temporary  success  in  preventing 
the  social  ruin  of  the  republic  hardly  extended  be- 
yond the  cruel  butchery  which  destroyed  them  ;  and 
reaction,  malversation,  corruption,  and  demoraliza- 
tion paved  the  way  for  the  introduction  of  the  em- 
pire. 

That  the  pernicious  system  of  landholding  which 
obtained  in  despite  of,  rather  than  in  accordance 
with,  the  Roman  civil  law,  was  the  cause  of  the  sub- 
version of  the  Roman  republic,  and  of  the  ultimate 
decline  and  fall  of  the  Roman  emjDire,  there  appears 
now  no  question  among  historian  or  scholars.  Mal- 
thus  treated  the  British  land  system  as  though  it  had 
been  a  part  of  the  "  laws  of  nature,"  and  contends 
that  "  though  human  institutions  appear  to  be,  and, 
indeed,  often  are,  the  obvious  and  obtrusive  causes 
of  much  mischief  to  society,  they  are  in  reality  light 
and  superficial  in  comparison  with  these  deeper- 
seated  causes  of  evil  which  result  from  the  laws  of 
nature  and  the  passions  of  mankind." 

Yet  even  he  makes  this  statement:  "When  the 
equcditii  of  property  which  had  formerly  prevailed  in 
the  Roman  territory  had  been  destroyed  by  degrees, 
and  the  land  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  a  few  great 
proprietors,  the  citizens,  who  were  by  this  means 
successively  deprived  of  the  means  of  supporting 
themselves,  would  naturally  have  no  resource  to 
prevent  them  from  starving  but  that  of  selling 
their  labor  to  the  rich,  as  in  modern  states ;" 
and  then  adds  that  they  were  cut  off  from  even 
this   resource   by  the   enormous   number    of   slaves 


ULN'D    OWNERSHIP.  149 

wliich  liad  been  captured  in  the  wars,  and  wlio  did 
all  the  asrricultural  and  mechanical  labor. 

Macleod  says :  "  Rome,  which  had  not  seen  a 
foreign  foe  for  seven  centuries,  was  four  times  sacked 
by  the  barbarians  in  the  fifth  century.  The  free 
yeomen  of  the  bright  days  of  the  republic  had  per- 
ished in  the  civil  wars.  The  land  was  parceled  out 
among  a  number  of  gigantic  proprietors,  and  cul- 
tivated exclusively  by  slaves.  Tillage  had  nearly 
ceased,  and  all  the  supplies  came  from  the  provinces. 
With  the  loss  of  these  the  supplies  failed,  and  the 
population  was  reduced  to  the  lowest  depths  of  mis- 
en/. 

That  it  was  the  maladministration  of  the  land  which 
resulted  in  the  enslavement  and  degradation  of  the 
people  and  the  exhaustion  and  loss  of  fertility  of  the 
soil  is  too  patent  for  serious  discussion.  But  it  may 
be  well  to  notice  that  what  Niebuhr  and  other  late 
writers  regard  as  a  merit  in  the  "  agrarian  law  "  con- 
stituted its  main  defect.  It  did  not  attempt  to  deal 
with  all  the  land  of  the  republic ;  but  only  with  that 
portion  of  which  recent  private  appropriation  had 
been  made.  If  we  had  a  history  of  the  matter  at  all 
clear,  it  would  doubtless  appear  that  all  private 
dominion  of  the  land  had  arisen  in  Eome  in  the  same 
way  as  that  which  the  patricians  had  more  recently 
obtained,  from  the  sufferance  of  the  state,  over  lands 
admitted  to  be  public — a  process  similar  to  that 
which  has  been  going  on  in  our  own  countr}''  for  a 
hundred  3'ears.  A  possible  agrarian  law  Avas  one 
which  should  have  dealt  with  nil  Inml  alike,  and  thus 
have  prevented  those  dangerous  accumulations  in 
the  bauds  of  a  few  which  gave  power  to  tlie  strong 


150  SOCIAL   WEALTH. 

to  defeat  any  effort  whatsoever  to  protect  the  pos- 
sessions of  the  weak.  The  system  of  landed  property 
in  Rome  is  shown  to  have  been  much  the  same  as 
that  in  other  states,  and  was,  doubtless,  developed  in 
a  similar  way.  Their  "households,"  "  clan  villages," 
and  "  cantons  "  corresponded  in  a  general  way  with 
the  households,  villages,  and  manors  of  later  times. 
The  earliest  authentic  histor}'  of  Rome  gives  us  three 
classes :  slaves,  clients,  and  patricians,  or  house- 
holders. The  first  were  property  ;  the  second  were 
persons,  but  without  political  rights ;  the  last  were 
"  the  people."  The  slaves  were,  doubtless,  captives 
taken  in  war,  or  their  descendants ;  the  second  class 
were  probably  aliens,  who  had  come  in  as  refugees, 
etc.,  but  who  seldom,  under  the  Roman  customs,  ob- 
tained the  privilege  of  citizenship.  But  all  the 
burghers  were  on  a  footing  of  equality,  and  as  land 
and  political  rights  were  inseparable,  the  original  con- 
dition as  between  them  must  have  been  equal  owner- 
ship. 

Speaking  of  a  still  earlier  peojole  than  the  Romans, 
Henry  Sumner  Maine  says :  "  Whenever  a  corner 
is  lifted  up  of  the  veil  which  hides  from  us  the  primi- 
tive condition  of  mankind,  even  such  parts  of  it  as  we 
know  to  have  been  destined  to  civilization,  there  are 
two  positions  now  very  familiar  to  us  which  seem  to 
be  signally  falsified  by  all  we  are  permitted  to  see  : 
All  men  are  brothers,  and  all  men  are  equal.  The 
scene  before  us  is  rather  that  which  the  animal  world 
presents  to  the  mental  eye  of  those  who  have  the 
courage  to  bring  home  to  themselves  the  facts  an- 
swering to  the  memorable  theory  of  natural  selection. 
Each  fierce  little  community  is  perpetually  at  war 


LAND   OWNERSHIP.  151 

with  its  neiglibor,  tribe  with  tribe,  village  with  vil- 
lage. The  never-ceasiug  attacks  of  the  strong  on  the 
weak  end  in  the  manner  expressed  by  the  monoto- 
nons  formula  which  so  often  occurs  in  the  pages  of 
Thucydides  :  'They  put  the  men  to  the  sword,  the 
women  and  the  children  they  sold  into  slaverj'.'  Yet, 
even  amid  this  cruelty  and  carnage,  we  find  the  germs 
of  ideas  which  have  spread  over  the  world.  There 
is  still  a  place  and  a  sense  in  which  men  are  brothers 
and  equals.  The  universal  belligerency  is  the  bel- 
ligerency of  one  total  group,  tribe,  or  village  with 
another ;  but  in  the  interior  of  the  groups  the  regi- 
men is  not  one  of  conflict  and  confusion,  but,  rather, 
of  ultra  legality.  The  men  who  composed  the  primi- 
tive communities  believed  themselves  to  be  kinsmen 
in  the  most  literal  sense  of  the  word ;  and  surpris- 
ing as  it  may  seem,  there  are  a  multitude  of  indica- 
tions that  in  one  stage  of  thought  they  must  have 
regarded  themselves  as  equals.  When  those  primi- 
tive bodies  first  make  their  appearance  as  land- 
owners, as  claiming  an  exclusive  enjoyment  in  a 
definite  area  of  land,  not  only  do  their  shares  of  the 
soil  appear  to  have  been  originally  equal,  but  a  num- 
ber of  contrivances  survive  for  preserving  the  equal- 
ity, of  which  the  most  frequent  is  the  periodical 
redistribution  of  the  tribal  domain.  .  .  .  Gradually, 
and  probably  under  the  influence  of  a  great  variety 
of  causes,  the  institution  familiar  to  us,  individual 
property  in  land,  has  arisen  from  the  dissolution  of 
the  ancient  co-ownership  "  (V.  C,  225-227). 

Emile  de  Laveleye,  in  his  "  Primitive  Property," 
asserts  as  the  conclusion  of  his  thorongli  investiga- 
tion of  the  sul)j(;(;t  in  all  primitive  societies  all  over 


152  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

the  globe  that  "  the  soil  was  the  joint  property  of 
the  tribes,  and  was  subject  to  periodical  redistribu- 
tion among  all  the  families,  so  that  all  might  live  by 
their  labor  as  nature  has  ordained.  The  comfort  of 
each  was  thus  proportioned  to  his  energy  and  intel- 
ligence; no  one,  at  any  rate,  was  destitute  of  the 
means  of  subsistence ;  and  inequality  increasing  from 
generation  to  generation  was  provided  against  .  .  . 
freedom,  and,  as  a  consequence,  the  ownership  of  an 
individual  share  of  the  common  property  to  which 
the  head  of  every  family  in  the  clan  was  equallj-  en- 
titled were  in  the  German  village  essential  rights." 

The  redistribution  of  the  land  was  provided  for  in 
the  sacred  laws  of  the  Hebrews,  and  its  periodic 
return  was  hailed  as  a  religious,  as  well  as  a  social, 
festival.  The  land  could  "  not  be  sold  forever,"  at 
the  most,  for  forty-nine  years,  as  on  the  fiftieth  came 
the  national  jubilee.  Thus  no  Israelite  could  be 
wholly  deprived  of  his  heritage  in  the  land,  for  each 
year  brought  him  nearer  to  the  restoration,  and  re- 
duced, by  a  definite  amount,  the  sum  necessary  to 
redeem  his  patrimony,  if  he  should  obtain  means, 
before  the  fiftieth  year  returned.  In  the  same  rela- 
tion the  laws  of  Lycurgus  and  Solon  may  be  regarded, 
since,  economically,  the  abolition  of  debt  must  be  in 
many  respects  equivalent  to  a  redistribution  of  the 
land.*      The  aristocracy  of  Eome,  therefore,  must 


*  According  to  Plutarch,  "  the  first  of  Solon's  acts  was  that  debts 
should  be  forgiven,  and  that  no  man  for  the  future  sliould  take  the  bod}- 
of  his  debtor  for  security.  He  valued  himself  for  having  liberated  the 
mortgaged  fields  and  the  mortgaged  citizens  of  Athens." 

Julius  Csesar  enacted  what  Tacitus  calls  "a  wise  and  salutary  law," 


LAND   OWNERSHIP.  153 

have  regarded  any  agrarian  law  as  directly  leading  to 
eqnal  ownership  in  the  soil,  and  without  sufficient 
patriotism  to  esteem  the  public  good  above  the  in- 
terest of  self  or  class,  they  waged  against  it  a  relent- 
less war,  which  sacrificed,  in  turn,  the  republic,  the 
empire,  and  the  Boman  civilization. 

Look  at  the  c;^uestion  of  private  dominion  of  the 
land  in  whatever  light  we  may,  we  can  find  it  to 
originate  in  usurpation  only,  whether  of  the  camp, 
the  court,  or  the  market.  Whenever  such  dominion 
excludes  or  deprives  a  single  human  being  of  his 
equal  opportunit}',  it  is  in  violation,  not  only  of  the 
public  right,  and  of  the  social  duty,  but  of  the  very 
principle  of  law  and  morals  upon  which  property  it- 
self is  based,  which  has  been  stated  by  John  Locke 
to  be  this  :  "  For  his  labor  being  the  unquestionable 
property  of  the  laborer,  no  man  but  he  can  have  a 
right  to  what  that  is  once  joined  to,  at  least  where 
there  is  enough,  and  as  good  left  in  common  for  all 
others."  A  definition  which  will  apply  to  the  land 
as  well  as  to  mere  commodities. 

It  is  clear,  from  the  history  of  all  people  who  have 
a  history,  that  dominion  of  the  land,  in  any  other 
sense  than  that  of  common  dominion,  and  a  limited 
proprietorship,  such  as,  in  accordance  witli  the  above 
definition,  leaves  equal  opportunity  to  all  others,  is 
incompatible  with  all  principles  of  societary  devel- 
opment, and  could  never  have  been  understandingly 
sanctioned  by  any  social  consent,  even  did  we  not 
have  the  fullest  testimony  that  it  has  been  always 


compollirifi  creditors  to  deduct  from  the  priricii)al  of  a  dubt  whatever 
tlicy  had  been  paid  in  interest,  but  which  his  successors,  at  tlio  behests 
of  ilonian  capitaHsin,  utterly  disregarded. 


154  SOCIAL   "WEALTH. 

accomplished  by  official  betrayal  of  trusts,  or  by 
conversion  of  public  duties  into  private  rights,  when 
not,  as  frequently  has  happened,  by  direct  and  forci- 
ble usurpation.  To  say  that  society  can  have  estab- 
lished these  usurpations,  by  positive  enactment  tliat 
the}^  have  obtained  by  prescription,  or  that  individ- 
uals are  estopped  from  pleading  their  just  claim,  is 
saying,  in  effect,  that  society  may  destroy  itself — that 
it  may  enact  that  the  principle  of  law  on  which  prop- 
erty rests  shall  be  obliterated  in  the  name  and  in- 
terest of  another  kind  of  property,  which  is  not 
propert}''  but  robbery. 

From  the  hasty  review  we  have  made,  it  seems 
equally  apparent  that  rent  has  originated  in  a  wholly 
different  way  from  that  which  economists  assert; 
that  it  has  arisen  b}^  converting  the  public  tax  for- 
merly levied  upon  the  land  into  a  private  claim  or 
debt  due  to  one  who  has  perverted  the  public  rev- 
enue to  his  private  use,  and  then  claimed  dominion 
of  the  laud  from  whence  it  was  derived.  Surely 
Michael  Davitt  has  grounds  for  his  much-repre- 
hended saying,  "  Eent  is  an  immoral  tax. "  The  right 
to  tax  is  the  highest  prerogative  of  sovereignty,^  and 
may  be  logically  questioned  as  to  claim  from  any 
functionary  of  the  state,  or  from  the  state  itself,  ex- 
cept as  a  voluntary  tribute.  How,  then,  can  the 
right  of  its  enforcement  inhere  in  any  private  indi- 
vidual? How  devoid  of  any  justification  is  the 
employment  of  the  powers  of  the  state  to  enforce 
this  usurpation,  not  in  the  j)ublic  interest,  but  for 
private  emolument! 


CHAPTEE  X. 

PRIVATE   PEOPERTY   IN   LAND. 

Priyate  property  in  laud,  if  such  a  tliiug  cousists 
with  public  right  at  all,  must  depend  upon  precisely 
the  same  principle  as  any  other  right  of  property. 
As  an  element  in  human  progress,  the  right  of  private 
property,  in  importance,  has  taken  first  and  almost 
only  place  in  the  current  systems  of  law  and  of  polit- 
ical economy.  While  admitting  its  great  importance, 
we  cannot  conceal  the  fact  that  the  writers  on  those 
subjects  have  wholly  failed  to  distinguish  between 
its  use  and  its  abuse,  or  to  recognize  its  rational  and 
equitable  limits.  The  nature  of  property,  which  is 
defined  by  economists  to  be  "  a  bundle  of  rights,"  is 
now  generally  conceded  to  be  "that  of  the  individual 
to  be  protected  b}'  society  in  the  quiet  possession  of 
that  which  his  labor  has  produced." 

I  quote  Mr.  Mill  to  the  effect  tliat  the  logic  of 
property  rights  is  "  to  assure  to  all  persons  what 
they  have  produced  by  their  labor."  This  has  been 
the  reason  on  which  all  laws  relating  to  property 
have  been  professedly  l)ased  in  all  ages,  however  im- 
perfect or  partially  executed. 

We    now    inquire    how    tliese    princi])les    become 

applied  to   the  land,   Avhich,   as  all  admit,   no  labor 

had  originally  formed  or  produced.     It  is  an  easy 

thing  to  form  a  theory  as  to  the  first  assumption  of 

i» 


156  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

property  in,  or  dominion  over,  the  land,  but  the  mis- 
chief wrought  by  theories  of  this  kind  is  that  the 
originator,  instead  of  using  it  as  a  theory  to  help  on  a 
process  of  elucidation,  immediately  assumes  it  as  a 
fact,  and  decides  the  problem  solved,  and  all  existing 
statutes  and  customs  justified.  Says  Gibbon :  "  The 
original  right  of  property  can  only  be  justified  by  the 
accident  or  merit  of  prior  occupancy.  In  the  succes- 
sive states  of  society  the  hunter,  the  shepherd,  the 
husbandman,  may  defend  their  possessions,  by  two 
reasons  which  forcibly  appeal  to  the  feelings  of  the 
human  mind ;  that  whatever  they  enjoy  is  the  fruit 
of  their  own  industry ;  and  that  every  man  who 
envies  their  felicity  may  purchase  similar  acquisi- 
tions by  the  exercise  of  similar  diligence."  He 
admits  that  "  the  common  rights,  the  equal  inheri- 
tance of  mauhind,"  become  usurped  by  the  crafty 
and  bold.  "  In  the  progress  from  primitive  equity 
to  final  injustice,  the  steps  are  silent,  the  shades  are 
almost  imperceptible,  and  the  absolute  monopoly  is 
guarded  by  positive  laws  and  artificial  reasons."  It 
is  unquestioned  that  monopol}^,  as  it  exists,  is  di- 
rectly the  reverse  in  its  origin  from  that  assumed 
as  under  the  law  of  trade,  and  is  derived  from  a 
system  of  ownership  of  which  traces  remain  in  every 
civilized  country. 

Laws  to  protect  and  define  separate  ownership 
were  made  in  the  interests  of  equity,  and  were  at 
first  limitations  to  usurped  dominion,  rather  than  to 
protect  and  extend  dominion  by  force,  and  so  far  as 
dictated  by  reason,  were  a  restriction  upon  arbitrary 
will,  and  were  developed  by  the  gradual  correction 


PRIVATE   PROPERTY   IN   LAND.  157 

of  tlie  mistakes  and  evils  flowing  from  misdirection 
and  ignorance. 

As  we  Lave  seen,  all  human  exertion  is  resolvable 
into  motion,  or  movement  of  things.  The  necessary- 
relation  between  ihe  mover  and  the  moved  is  obvi- 
ously so  close  tnat  there  can  be  no  room  for  any 
broad  extension  for  either  one  without  the  other. 
There  is  also  a  definite  proportion  between  the  two 
— the  power  applied  and  the  object  eflected ;  the 
doer  and  the  thing  acted  upon.  The  man,  strong  or 
weak,  measures  his  strength  against  matter,  and 
nature  awards  to  his  control  just  so  much  as  he  can 
move,  and  no  more.  If  he  essays  to  move  a  pound 
more  than  he  is  able,  the  force  he  does  exert  fails  of 
all  effect  whatever. 

Now  let  us  recall  the  generally  admitted  premise 
that  all  have  an  original  claim  to  the  ownership  of 
the  land.  Take  the  individual  alone  with  nature. 
How  much  land  can  he  move  in  the  direction  of  pro- 
duction— in  other  words,  cultivate  and  improve? 
In  his  savage  state  he  could  roam  over  a  consider- 
able area,  and  would  require  it  to  support  his  exist- 
ence by  capturing  wdld  game  and  gathering  wild 
fruits.  But  as  game  grew  scarce,  nature  would  com- 
pel him  to  limit  himself  to  a  smaller  area.  Ultimately 
a  very  few  acres  would  yield  to  him  the  greatest 
possible  return  for  his  effort,  because  proportion  be- 
tween the  force  and  the  thing  acted  upon  is  one  of 
the  prime  conditions  of  effectiveness  in  all  spheres 
of  praduction.  Tliis,  then,  is  both  the  normal  and 
the  economic  relation  between  man  and  the  soil,  and 
one  which  cannot  be  rightfully  changed  by  any  social 
compact,  custom,  or  statute  law.     J5y  coinbiniiij^  liis 


158  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

strength  with  others  only  can  he  accomplish  more 
useful  results  or  control  a  wider  domain. 

As  division  of  labor  and  increased  effectiveness 
are  attained  through  combination,  a  still  less  and 
less  extent  of  control  results  proportionally.  So 
greatly  has  the  division  of  labor  reduced  this  pro- 
portion that  many  otherwise  intelligent  people  be- 
come unconscious  that  they  need  access  to  the  earth 
at  all.  The  progress  of  society  in  industry  and  com- 
merce tends  to  reduce  constantly  the  necessary  margin 
to  individual  control.  The  custom  or  statute,  there- 
fore, which  guarantees  exclusive  possession  to  a 
class,  so  extended  that  even  the  small  amount  re- 
quired by  each  person  can  only  be  obtained  at  a 
monopoly  price,  has  no  foundation  in  any  reason,  or 
principle  of  law  of  equity  or  economy.  There  can 
be  no  just  extension  of  control  to  one  person  while 
another  is  deprived  of  all  control.  Besides,  there 
can  be  no  extension  to  the  general  control.  The 
land  of  the  whole  globe  is  a  fixed  quantity,  and  so  is 
that  of  every  quarter — the  domain  of  every  nation, 
state,  or  township.  When  the  whole  people  have  no 
power  to  increase  their  domain,  how  can  the  indi- 
vidual have  unlimited  power  of  extension  to  his 
domain?  Can  society  confer  a  power  it  does  not 
itself  possess?  Individual  possession  of  land  re- 
quires to  be  defined  and  limited  as  certainly  as  are 
the  boundaries  of  townships  or  states,  and  one  man 
can  no  more  rightly  own  the  land  upon  which  an- 
other lives  than  one  state  or  nation  can  have  juris- 
diction over  its  sister  state  or  nation. 

Ownership  of  land  is  sovereignty  over  the  domain, 
and  whoever   owns  the  land  upon  which   a  people 


PRIVATE   PROPERTY   IN  LAND.  159 

live  and  toil  is  their  sovereign  and  ruler.  When  this 
dominion  is  subject  to  the  commercial  law,  or  law 
of  the  market,  such  sovereignty  is  merely  that  of 
trade,  and  the  tribute  or  service  becomes  a  royalty  in 
the  form  of  rent,  interest,  or  dividend.  Traffic  in 
land,  therefore,  is  nothing  more  and  nothing  less  than  a 
traffic  in  a  Idrigly  prerogative,  and  an  extension  of 
"  the  divine  right  to  rule  "  the  "  earth  and  man  "  into 
the  domain  of  trade ;  and  by  which  the  victim  of 
misrule  gains  nothing  when  he  changes  his  nominal 
ruler  from  a  "  prince  of  the  blood  "  to  a  president  or 
governor,  who  like  himself  is  subject  to  the  "  trade 
king.'^ 

In  the  evolution  of  civil  law  the  right  of  private 
property  prescribed  limitations  to  the  barbaric  "  law 
of  the  stronger."  Its  influence  in  civilization  has  been 
incalculable.  Its  own  limitations  have  been  slowly 
discovered  and  more  tardily  applied,  until  its  abuses 
have  become  intolerable,  and  as  obstructive  of  hu- 
man progress  as  was  at  any  time  the  law  of  brute 
force,  Avhich  it  so  largely  modified.  The  dominion 
of  property  over  man's  person  has  but  recently  been 
abrogated  ;  its  dominion  over  his  heritage  is  yet  sur- 
preme ;  but  when  discovered  to  be  what  it  is,  a  bald 
usurpation,  it  will  naturally  or  violently  disappear, 
as  slavery  and  feudalism  have  done,  through  the 
evolution  of  industrial  and  social  laws. 

The  indefensible  nature  of  traffic  in  the  land,  and 
its  reduction  to  a  commodity,  subject  to  increase  and 
engrossment,  is  tacitly  admitted  by  the  silence  of 
the  economists  who  assume  its  accordance  with  nat- 
ure. Tlie  principal  writer  who  has  taken  up  tlie 
pen  on  the   conservative  side  of  the  land  question 


160  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

scarcely  makes  a  passable  apology  for  the  system. 
Mr.  W.  H.  Mallock,  iu  his  review  of  Messrs.  George, 
Hj'ndmau,  and  Marx,  admits  that  to  do  away  with 
rent  might  benefit  the  rent  payer,  as  the  release  from 
any  other  debt  might  do.  He  seems  to  be  unable  to 
comprehend  that  the  question  has  a  wider  scope,  and 
that,  as  often  happens,  the  immediate  rent  payer 
makes  a  greater  profit  from  a  high  rent,  since  it 
operates,  to  a  certain  extent,  to  shut  out  competition, 
the  same  as  a  license  tax  often  afi^ects  a  particular 
business.  It  is  the  social  injustice  which  is  to  be 
deplored,  and  which  sometimes  travels  far  before  it 
falls  upon  the  unfortunate  burden-bearer. 

He  makes  no  effort  to  show  how  an  honest  debt 
can  be  formed  by  privilege  to  use  the  "  common  in- 
heritance," nor  at  all  attempts  to  justify  the  mode  in 
which  the  toiler  has  been  robbed  of  his  right  to  the 
land  necessary  to  his  support.  He  does  not  deny 
that  the  time  may  come  when  the  land  laws  may 
require  to  be  modified ;  but  satisfies  himself  with 
attacking  what  he  regards  as  weak  points  in  the 
statements  and  logic  of  the  parties  in  review,  and 
parries,  as  he  best  can,  their  arguments  and  reason- 
ings. He  avoids  altogether  any  discussion  of  the 
rise  and  growth  of  the  system,  or  any  inquiry  what- 
ever into  the  origin  of  the  titles  iinder  which  land  is 
held  from  the  people.  He  will  only  entertain  the 
fact  that  the  present  proprietor  came  to  hold  from 
another  by  purchase,  and,  therefore,  is  to  be  deemed 
honestly  in  possession  of  his  land,  since  he  paid  his 
money  for  it.  But,  if  we  were  to  admit  to  be  true 
what  in  large  estates  is  notoriously  untrue,  even  in 
this   country,  it  could  give   no  justification   to  the 


PKIYATE   PROPERTY  IN  LAND.  161 

system,  since  to  trace  any  title  back  will  yield  us 
nothing  at  last  but  one  of  forceful  and  fraudulent 
taking,  even  were  land  a  proper  subject  of  traffic  at 
all. 

Mr,  Mallock  deprecates  the  agitation  against  land 
ownership,  and  though  he  acknowledges  it  may  work 
evils  and  require  to  be  modified,  thinks  a  remedy 
like  "nationalization  of  the  land,"  or  "  limitation  of 
estates  in  land,"  would  be  like  prohibiting  the  sale 
of  knives  because  they  were  sometimes  used  felo- 
niously to  take  life.  But,  in  fact,  the  purpose  for 
which  dominion  of  the  land  that  others  need  is 
sought  is  to  reduce  labor  to  vassalage,  ultimately  to 
eject  the  laborer  —  murder  him;  first  his  man- 
hood, so  as  to  bar  to  him  all  improvement  from  gen- 
eration to  generation ;  and  then  to  destroy  him. 
All  this  is  not  the  showing  of  Messrs.  George,  Hynd- 
man,  and  Karl  Marx ;  but  of  W.  H.  Mallock  in  the 
very  pages  we  are  reviewing.  In  his  arraignment  of 
capitalism,  he  is  almost  without  an  equah  A  position 
more  damaging  to  it  has  seldom  been  taken  by  liadi- 
cal  or  Socialist.  'He  even  exceeds  the  fact,  which  is 
bad  enough.  He  says  :  "What  is  progressive  is  not 
the  faculties  of  the  hireling  laborers,  but  the 
knowledge  of  the  men  by  whom  labor  is  directed. 
The  laborers  begin  exactly  Avhere  their  fathers  be- 
gan. The  directors  of  Labor  begin  exactly  where 
tlieir  fathers  ended"  (Property  and  Progress,  p.  157). 

Now,  although  this  statement  is  only  gen(!rally 
true  of  farm  and  factory  laborers,  and  largely  false 
of  mechanical  and  of  nearly  all  otlier  workers  for 
wages  wlio  are  capable  of  solf-em])loyment,  it  is  due, 
lUKpiestiouably,  tf)  the  extent  that  it  is  true,  to  the 


162  SOCIAL   WEALTH. 

capitalistic  system  under  which  "  Property  and  Prog- 
ress "  are  discreted  from  "  labor  and  arrested  de- 
velopment," so  far  as  it  is  possible,  by  cunning  de- 
vice, to  reverse  the  natural  course  of  industry. 

But  when  Mr.  Mallock  comes  to  indorse  the  theory 
of  Malthus,  he  makes  what  might  have  been  regarded 
otherwise  as  a  meek  submission  to  the  logic  of  events, 
an  evident  predetermination  to  obtain  and  hold  do- 
minion of  the  land,  not  only  that  the  future  laborer 
might  be  rendered  unable  to  begin  w^here  his  father 
left  off,  but  even  to  end  as  his  father  ended.  It 
preaches  to  him  a  gospel  of  ejection  and  extinction, 
even  before  Malthus's  dismal  result  shall  be  reached, 
and  acquires  and  maintains  ownership  of  the  land, 
that  this  may  be  done  the  more  effectually,  so  that 
his  taking  off  may  preclude  and  render  unnecessary 
any  unpleasant  struggle  he  might  make  in  the  ulti- 
mate competitive  selection. 

To  be  sure,  he  admits  that  "  when  the  Duke  of 
Westminster  shows  any  desire  to  expel  all  the  Bel- 
graviaus,  when  the  Duke  of  Bedford  proposes  to 
turn  Covent  Garden  into  a  game-preserve,  and  when 
it  comes  to  be  the  ambition  of  English  landlords 
gencraJh/  not  to  get  their  rents,  but  to  get  rid  of  their 
tenantr}^  then  we  may  be  certain  that  the  English 
land  laws  will  be  altered  "  (p.  114).  But  in  truth  the 
power  to  eject,  given  by  law  to  the  landlord,  is  not 
merely  a  power  capable  of  abuse,  as  the  possession 
of  a  knife  may  be,  but  it  is  a  power  sought  and  given 
for  this  purpose  alone,  and  which,  no  one  knows  bet- 
ter than  Mr.  Mallock,  is  not  only  freely  exercised, 
without  even  the  wretched  excuse  that  they  want  to 
get  their  rents,  by  English  and  Irish  and  Scotch 


PRIVATE   PROPERTY  IN   LAND.  163 

landlords,  but  by  those  of  every  country  where  land 
monopoh"  prevails.  They  have  the  civil  and  military 
power  of  the  nations  at  their  disposal  to  do  the  mur- 
der of  their  bidding,  and  that  withcmt  inquiring 
whether  the  landlords  want  their  rent,  or  to  estab- 
lish a  rabbit  Avarren,  only  they  must  not  do  it  in  a 
" general  tvay,  you  know;"  that  would  not  be  toler- 
ated, and  so  the  whole  system  would  tumble !  But 
while  the  knife  is  onl}'  used  on  those  who  are  feeble 
and  ignorant,  and  could  not  sustain  the  struggle  for 
any  length  of  time,  any  way,  it  is  all  folly  to  make 
such  a  noise  about  it.  It  only  anticipates  by  a  triile 
of  a  thousand  years,  perhaps,  the  fulfilment  of  the 
prophecy  of  the  "  Gospel  according  to  St.  Malthus," 
and  so,  in  any  event,  must  be  looked  upon  as  the  act 
of  Providence,  rather  than  of  the  capitalistic  land- 
lords and  their  servile  instruments  ! 

Coupled  with  the  Malthusian  theory  of  population, 
land  monopoly  resolves  itself  into  an  institution  to 
predetermine  the  dismal  issue  without  awaiting  the 
struggle  and  actual  trial  of  strength  and  endurance, 
so  that  the  "  unfittest,"  not  the  "  fittest,"  may  survive, 
and  the  fittest  be  destroyed.  Because  the  desire  to 
have  the  means  of  subsistence  in  the  hands  of  capi- 
talists alone  is  one  to  give  them  an  unequal  advan- 
tage, and  to  bring  on  the  issue  long  before  any 
natural  cause  for  it  existed,  if  one  is  possible. 

Now,  Malthus  has  made  a  theory  from  all  the  facts 
in  the  case,  or  he  has  falsified  and  ignored  facts 
which,  as  many  contend,  show  the  contrary  theory  to 
be  true,  or  he  has  built  his  theory  upon  partially  as- 
certained ])rf' misos,  and  to  the  neglect  of  tendencies 
and  principles  which  counteract  and  render  his  the- 


164  SOCIAL   WEALTH. 

ory  improbable  as  to  any  specific  culmination,  but 
only  in  a  general  way  proving  tendencies  to  exist, 
which,  if  uncomplemented  by  others,  would  produce 
the  specific  result,  as  gravity  without  centrifugal 
force  could  cause  the  earth  to  fall  directly  to  the 
sun.  I  think  the  truth  more  likely,  at  least,  to  be 
found  in  the  middle  ground  than  at  either  extreme. 
But  so  far  as  this  issue  of  the  land  is  concerned, 
what  essential  difference  can  it  make  ? 

If  Mr.  George's  position  on  this  question  is  sound, 
then  there  can  exist  no  justification  for  large  control 
of  the  land,  to  be  sure.  If  the  mediate  position,  or 
any  mediate  position,  be  true,  then  Mr.  Mallock,  to 
justify  landlordism,  must  prove  that  form  of  owner- 
ship is  best  calculated  to  delay  and  render  less  liable 
to  occur  the  deplorable  result,  by  inaugurating  in- 
telligent and  humanitary  checks  to  population,  and 
by  refining  and  improving  the  race  so  as  to  render 
increase  less  rapid,  and  the  catastrophe  less  disas- 
trous, if  it  cannot  be  wholly  averted.  He,  however, 
does  nothing  of  the  kind ;  but,  on  the  contrary,  ad- 
mits that  the  system  we  have  intensifies  and  increases 
the  tendencies  against  which  every  impulse  of  man- 
hood is  aroused  to  resist  or  avert. 

But  suppose  the  theory  to  be  entirely  faultless,  and 
established  as  a  matter  ol  natural  science,  what  then 
is  his  position  ?  Why,  that  a  few,  at  most  a  part  of 
mankind,  are  justified  in  appropriating,  not  only  the 
greater  share  of  the  products  of  the  labor  of  the 
toilers,  but  the  land  itself,  the  source  of  all  suste- 
nance and  the  means  to  all  productive  labor,  so  as  to 
precipitate  the  crisis,  and  deprive  the  disinherited 
of  any  means  or  opj^ortunity  to  struggle  for  a  sur- 


TEIVATE   TROPERTY  IN   LAND.  165 

vival,  in  -wlncli  tliej  would  otherwise  be  sure  to 
succeed  against  the  effeminate  and  idle  who  are  un- 
used to  toil  and  privation.  Few  writers  of  any  school 
have  so  thoroughly  unmasked  the  tendencies  and 
purposes  of  modern  capitalism  as  he.  His  criticisms 
of  the  "Statistics  of  Agitation"  are  inconclusive 
where  they  do  not  favor  the  opposite  for  which  he 
offers  them.  If,  as  he  contends,  the  condition  of  the 
poor  is  growing  better,  and  the  relative,  if  not  pos- 
itive, condition  of  the  rich  is  growing  Avorse,  what 
probability  can  there  be  of  a  near  Malthusian  epoch, 
pray?  And  if  Mr.  Hyndman  and  Karl  Marx  have 
played  false  with  statistics  and  history  to  show  that 
once  the  condition  of  the  toiler  was  better  than  now, 
he  cannot  derive  the  cold  comfort  he  seeks  to  draw 
from  that  consideration  for  the  ojjpressed  and  disin- 
herited who  reclaim  a  portion  of  their  own,  become 
more  in  earnest  in  obtaining  other  portions,  and  arc 
not,  as  he  imagines,  disposed  to  rest  content  witli 
what  they  have  obtained,  and  to  trust  to  conservative 
rule  to  give  tliem  more. 

In  his  showing  that  capital  is  the  greater  robber  of 
the  two,  we  think  he  has  successfully  proved  that 
far  greater  amounts  are  taken  from  the  industry  of  a 
country  by  interest  and  profits  than  by  rent.  In  this 
lie  has  an  easy  task,  for  tliis  is  Mr,  George's  weakest 
])oint — indeed,  a  blunder  fatal  to  his  whole  plan  to 
remedy  tlie  evil.  And  still  it  may  bo  true,  as  un- 
questionably it  is,  that  the  making  a  commodity  of 
the  land  coiistitut(!S  the  basis  of  the  ca])italism  of 
goods,  whicli  enables  it  to  rear  a  superstructure  over- 
sliadowing  its  own  foundation,  tlio  monopoly  of  the 
land.    The  surprising  thing  is  that  one  should  enter- 


166  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

tain  the  strange  notion  tliat  the  destruction  of  land- 
monopoly  would  "  increase  the  earnings  [stealings] 
of  capital,"  unless,  indeed,  the  purpose  were  to  con- 
fiscate the  possession  of  one  gigantic  wrong  in  the 
interest  of  another,  in  the  vain  expectation  that  it 
will  stand  after  the  foundation  is  removed. 

The  last  point  I  can  notice  is  that  which  Mr. 
Mallock  takes  in  regard  to  "  right  to  land."  Though 
he  admits  it  in  a  general  way,  in  respect  to  the  whole 
earth,  he  denies  it  in  regard  to  any  specific  place  or 
portion,  and  thinks  the  time  likely  to  come  when  a 
number  of  citizens  more  would  be  born  than  could 
possibly  live  in  a  place,  and  "  who  not  only  had  no 
inalienable  right  to  live  in  it,  but  whom  their  fellow- 
citizens  had  an  inalienable  right  to  expeL"  He  thence 
infers  that  some  have  a  better  right  to  land  than 
others,  and  that  institutions  must  determine  which 
have  better  rights,  and  which  none  at  all.  But  all 
this  only  leads  over  the  road  we  have  already  sur- 
veyed, and  betrays  the  animus  of  landlordism,  which 
proposes  to  have  the  sure  thing  when  the  crisis 
arrives,  and  to  not  wait  its  coming,  but  keep  the 
machine  in  running  order  by  expelling  and  crowding 
out  a  few  periodically. 

Indeed,  I  think  some  have  a  better  right  to  land 
than  others,  viz. :  those  who  render  it  productive 
and  so  remove,  or  at  least  postpone,  the  pressure  of 
population  upon  the  means  of  subsistence.  But 
those  are  proverbially  not  the  landlords,  who,  as  a 
class,  do  the  least,  and  often  nothing,  to  promote 
production,  unless  paying  their  money  to  some  one 
who  has^  no  exclusive  title  to  the  land,  and  taking 


Private  property  in  land.  167 

the   rent   as  it  becomes   due,    is   reckoned  to  their 
credit. 

When  a  ship's  company,  through  wreck  or  cir- 
cumstance of  any  kind,  becomes  reduced  to  neces- 
sit}^  every  one  is  put  on  an  "  allowance,"  or,  in  ut- 
most extremity,  lots  are  cast,  and  thus  the  struggle 
for  survival  is  made  an  equitable  one.  A  Hannibal 
or  CiBsar,  in  the  forced  march  and  severe  privation, 
shared  the  lot  of  the  common  soldier.  Not  so  with 
capitalism  and  a  pseudo-aristocracy.  That  requires 
all  such  unpleasant  episodes  to  be  at  the  expense  of 
the  laborer,  who  has  furnished  the  feast  at  which 
there  are  insufficient  places,  and  whom  the  lordling 
and  "money-bag"  "have  an  inalienable  right  to 
expel,"  that  they  may  partake  in  peace.  Under- 
stand the  crisis  you  have  to  meet,  O  workers !  and 
ask  yourselves  whether  such  issue  to  existing  laws 
and  customs,  made  by  their  ablest  champion,  renders 
them  longer  worth  your  submission  and  respect. 


CHAPTER  XL 

CAPITAL  AND   THE   PRODUCTIVE   FACTORS. 

What  is  capital,  and  what  the  things  embraced 
therein,  is  a  question  so  completely  mj-stified  by  the 
accredited  writers  on  political  economy  that  the 
word  would  not  be  employed  but  that  it  is  generally 
used  to  signify  accumulations  of  wealth  or  goods. 
The  latest  definition  of  it  is  "  any  economic  quantity 
from  which  a  profit  is  derived." 

But  the  distinction  of  chief  importance  is  this, 
whether  a  thing  in  its  natiire  is  competent  to  give  in- 
crease, or  has  such  quality  conferred  by  poiccrs  hor- 
Towcd  from  other  things,  or  by  conventional  customs 
and  institutions.  In  its  scientific  aspect,  this  dis- 
tinction is  of  vital  importance.  What  has  power  of 
increase  in  nature  is  readily  determined.  All  organ- 
ized things'have  growth  and  the  power  of  reproducing 
themselves.  But  no  inert  matters  have  any  such 
power,  and  it  is  only  through  labor  or  the  exertion 
of  the  human  powers  that  they  can  have  their  utility 
or  their  exchangeable  value  increased.  Of  the  or- 
ganic things  which  grow  and  multiply,  none  are 
available  to  man's  use  without  the  exercise  of  his 
powers  in  gathering  and  moving  them.  The  farmer 
or  horticulturist  who  cultivates  berries  in  prefei'ence 
to  gathering  wild  ones  from  the  fields,  does  it  be- 
cause it  requires  less  labor  to  procure  them  of  equal 

168 


CAPITAL  AXD  THE  PEODUCTIYE  FACTORS.  1G9 

quality  that  vraj  than  to  gather  the  natural  fruit. 
And.  so  it  is  with  all  kinds  of  production.  We  would 
not  adopt  the  artificial  if  it  did  not  yield  better,  or. 
at  least,  equal  compensation  with  the  mere  pursuit 
of  garnering  natural  productions.  On  careful  exam- 
ination, we  shall  also  find  that  no  thing  in  nature 
multiplies  or  increases  without  human  care  or  atten- 
tion which  does  not  require  the  same  sacrifice  of 
time  and  effort  to  (father  or  capture  as  it  would  to 
produce  kindred  utilities  by  artificial  means. 

The  natural  productions  of  the  land,  and  the 
growth  of  wild  animals,  fowls,  and  other  forms  of 
animated  nature  which  man  appropriates  for  food  or 
to  furnish  skins  or  fiber  for  clothing,  are  really  em- 
braced in  the  simple  term  land,  because  they  have 
no  existence  independent  of  it,  and  whoever  controls 
the  land  appropriates  them. 

In  the  earlier  conceptions,  which  regarded  cajDital 
as  the  stock  or  amount  of  money  put  to  productive 
use,  there  was  always  a  general  acknowledgment 
tliat  it  promoted  production,  while  at  the  same  time 
it  claimed  to  be  stored  labor,  or  produc^t  of  labor. 

But  business  operations  usually  show,  not  a  gain  to 
rapifah,  but  a  stead?/  Joss,  and  a  loss  which  is  only 
made  good  by  constant  accessions  from  the  earnings 
of  current  labor.  Of  all  those  who  go  into  business, 
but  a  small  number  come  out  with  their  capital  un- 
impaired, after  a  reasonable  compensation  has  been 
allowed  for  their  services  for  the  time  engaged. 
That  a  few  do  more  than  this,  some  realizing  large 
fortunes,  gives  currency  to  the  conco])tion  that  stock 
in  trade  is  productive,  and  lends  infatuation  to  the 
idea  tliat  money  can  bo  junde  in  it,  as  a  successful 


170  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

l)uyer  of  a  lottery  ticket  tliiuks  that  lotteries  pay. 
Of  land  and  labor  only  it  can  be  said  with  any  de- 
gree of  accuracy  they  yield  an  increase.  And  of 
them  it  can  be  said  only  when  they  are  united,  or 
the  labor  is  applied  upon  the  land  or  upon  material 
derived  from  the  land. 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  land  and  labor,  instead 
of  being  excluded  from  the  classification,  should  be 
regarded  in  economics  as  they  are  in  nature,  the 
ONLY  CAPITAL.  The  man  who  owns  the  land  to  the 
exclusion  of  labor  can  derive  an  income  from  it 
through  the  necessity  of  the  excluded  worker,  who 
must  obtain  access  to  it  by  paying  rent,  or  sell  his 
labor  for  what  the  land  holder  will  pay. 

It  is  possible,  therefore,  by  dominion  over  these 
prime  factors,  to  effect  false  and  wholly  artificial 
conditions  which  shall  give  increase  to  other  things 
and  other  activities  besides  those  of  land  and  useful 
labor.  The  customs  and  laws  which  justify  slavery 
place  the  laborer  in  the  category  of  chattels,  and  his 
person  among  subjects  of  traffic.  Proj^erty,  of  course, 
becomes  productive  then,  especially  if,  as  usually,  the 
slaveholder  be  also  a  land  holder.  As  the  laborer 
becomes  a  merchantable  commodity,  and  can  be 
bought  with  money,  he  will  impart  to  that  money  or 
otber  commodity  for  which  he  will  exchange,  a  re- 
productive power.  It  may  be  mentioned  as  a  fact, 
that  in  slave-countries  the  rate  of  interest,  other 
things  being  equal,  is  always  high.  The  rate  in  this 
country  has  fallen  quite  one-half  since  the  abolition 
of  shxvery  in  scarcely  more  than  a  score  of  years. 
Other  circumstances  have  contributed  to  the  same 


Capital  and  the  productive  factors.        171 

end,  doubtless,  but  that  has  been  one  of  the  mam 
causes. 

If  the  hind  be  reduced  to  the  condition  of  a  com- 
modity, and  made  a  thing  to  be  trafficked  in,  the 
money  or  goods  for  which  it  will  exchange  will  have 
imparted  to  it  the  same  power  of  increase  which  ' 
attaches  to  the  land,  and  will  have  conferred  uj)on  it 
the  same  royalty  or  power  to  tax  the  production  of 
labor.  In  nature  land  and  labor  are  always  capital, 
and  never  commodities  ;  and  the  products  of  these  are 
alivays  commodities,  and  never  capital,  except  through 
subversion  of  normal  relations,  and  by  the  reduction 
of  capital  to  the  category  of  products,  thereby  dis- 
persing a  portion  of  its  productive  power,  to  sustain 
a  false  factor  in  its  relation.  The  truth  of  this,  how- 
ever, aside  from  the  interest  of  the  capitalistic  advo- 
cate to  disguise  it,  is  lost  sight  of  from  the  fact  that 
most  persons,  using  commodities  in  the  production 
of  other  commodities  and  in  rendering  service,  as 
merchants  with  their  goods,  and  carriers  with  their 
teams  or  other  means  of  transportation,  join  with  it 
their  personal  and  also  hired  service,  and  usuaJJ)/ 
ccdculafe  these  earnings  qfhibor  as  prof  t  on  their  capitdL 

When  the  farmer  joins  his  labor  to  the  land  he 
has  bought  with  money,  and  employs  hireling  labor 
mainly  to  do  the  work,  he  regards  the  profits  upon 
the  labor  and  his  entire  earnings,  and  perhaps  of  his 
family  also,  as  so  much  gain,  to  be  credited  to  the 
profit  on  the  money  paid  for  the  land,  for  wages  and 
necessary  means  to  prosecute  his  business. 

Tlie  increase  which  has  resulted  from  the  union  of 
land  and  labor  is  shared  by  the  money  lord,  while 
the  land   and   the   labor  receive  between   them   the 


172  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

moiety  their  necessities  demand.  Even  the  rent 
goes,  not  to  the  land,  but  io  the  landlord  as  a  capital- 
ist whose  money  is  invested  in  the  land. 

The  failure  of  Mr.  George  to  discover  this  led 
him  to  treat  of  the  monopoly  of  land  and  of  caj^ital 
,as  two  separate  things,  not  merely  distinct  from,  but 
as  antagonistic  to,  each  other  ;  the  one  as  the  friend, 
and  the  other  as  the  enemy  of  labor.  Overlooking 
the  fact  tliat  land  is  reduced  to  a  commodity  and  so 
brought  under  the  reign  of  capitalism,  and  that 
"  private  property  in  land,"  is  simply  one  of  its 
means  of  subjecting  labor,  the  principal  one  since 
chattelism  is  abolished,  he  concludes  that  there  is 
an  inverse  tendency  between  the  operation  of  land- 
lordism and  capitalism,  and  between  the  rates  of  rent 
and  of  interest.  Notliing  could  be  farther  from  the 
truth.  Interest  and  rent  are  not  rates,  but  things  to 
which  rate  applies.  The  rate  per  cent,  of  rent  and 
the  rate  per  cent,  of  interest  so  nearly  correspond  that 
they  may  be  said  to  be  the  same,  and  from  any  tem- 
porary aberration  tend  constantly  to  return  to  equi- 
librium. The  "  pure  economists  "  find  no  difficulty  in 
conceiving  land  and  labor  both  to  be  capital.  I  quote . 
"  The  land  itself  on  which  a  city  is  built  is  wealth ; 
the  owners  of  it  obtain  a  great  revenue  by  simply  al- 
lowing other  people  to  build  houses  upon  it"  (Macleod, 
E.  E.  76).  "  Labor  itself  is  a  valuable  commodity  ; 
it  has  value,  just  as  that  of  a  material  chattel ;  it  is, 
therefore,  an  exchange  "  (lb.,  128).  He  goes  on  to 
instance  copyrights,  patents,  etc.,  funds,  shares,  ad- 
vowson,  etc.,  and  triumphantly  asks  the  previous 
school  "  how  these  are  the  production,  distribution, 
and  consumption  of  wealth." 


CAPITAL  AND   THE   PEODUCTIVE   FACTORS.  173 

•  To  sliow  the  absurdity  of  treating  tliese  last-named 
tilings  as  ''  elements  of  a  physical  science,"  it  could 
be  suggested  to  him  that  they  are  mostly  the  creat- 
ures of  statute  and  prescfiption.  Advowson  in  par- 
ticular is  a  feature  peculiar  to  the  union  of  church 
and  state,  and  Avhich  would  necessarily  disappear' 
with  the  disestablishment  of  the  church.  He  could 
also  have  extended  his  list.  A  "  letter  of  marque,"  a 
license  to  keep  a  liquor  saloon,  a  brothel,  a  gambling 
hell,  or  a  "  fence  "  for  stolen  goods,  might  obtain  for 
its  owner  a  large  "  revenue  by  simply  allowing  other 
people  "  to  work  under  them.  An  appointment  or 
election  to  public  office,  which  capitalists  or  corpora- 
tions may  desire  to  influence  so  as  to  divert  public 
interests  to  private  use,  may  obtain  for  its  owner  also 
an  appreciable  sum,  and  it  is  therefore  wealth  and  a 
portion  of  his  capital  and  a  scientific  quantity !  To 
such  results  we  are  driven  the  moment  we  attempt  to 
place  the  natural  sources  of  wealth  in  the  same  cate- 
gory with  conferred  privilege  and  usurped  powers. 

That  when  capitals  or  properties  are  created  by 
law  and  .sanctioned  by  use,  trade  economists  should 
treat  them  as  economic  quantities  cannot  well  be 
avoided,  perhaps ,  but  that  they  should  be  instanced 
as  demonstration  of  scientific  principles  is  too  ab- 
surd for  serious  treatment.  We  might  not  prevent 
the  pretended  naturalist,  who  had  never  seen  horses 
but  with  blankets  or  trappings  on  them,  or  terrier 
dogs  but  with  docked  tails  and  croj^ped  ears,  from 
classifying  thorn  under  heads  determined  by  tliese 
distinctions  ;  but  we  need  not  allow  liim  to  confuse 
our  minds  with  the  notion  that  the  blanket  is  a  part 
of  the  horse,  or  that  tlie  t(;rrier's  ears  and  tail   are 


174  SOCIAL    WEALTH. 

sliortened  by  a  "  natural  instigation."  As  little 
should  we  be  misled  by  the  constant  treatment  by 
economists  of  the  most  artificial  and  arbitrary  rela- 
tions of  industry  to  trade  as  though  they  were  the 
scientific  exponents  of  natural  conditions  under  natu- 
ral law. 

The  subject  of  the  natural  means  and  factors  of 
production  forms  the  princii^al  stumbling-block  in 
the  reasonings  of  reformers  as  well  as  of  economists. 
Although  nothing  is  more  common  among  them  than 
the  phrase,  "  Labor  produces  all  wealth,"  yet  the 
Socialist,  as  well  as  the  capitalist,  will  immediately 
begin  to  talk  about  "  the  ineans  of  production ;"  the 
one  to  sliow  that  capital  acts  a  part  in  production, 
and  should  therefore  share  in  its  results,  and  the 
other  to  show  that  machinery,  tools,  etc.,  as  well  as 
the  land,  should  be  taken  possession  of  by  the  state, 
and  production  be  carried  on  for  the  benefit  of  alL 
As  usual,  the  truth  lies  between  the  extremes,  cer- 
tainly not,  as  here,  where  they  meet.  Land  and 
labor  being  the  natural,  unproduced  capital,  should 
have  no  artificial  barriers  placed  between  them. 
Land,  being  a  natural,  not  a  produced  thing,  has  no 
exchangeable  quality,  and  can  not  rightfully  be  held 
against  the  demands  of  the  needy.  It  is  the  basis  of 
life  and  action.  With  labor  it  is  productive ;  but  it 
is  the  only  thing  which  is  productive.  The  goods  of 
the  wealthy,  to  which  their  title  is  undisputed,  is 
that  alone  which  is  the  result  of  labor.  Now,  if  ma- 
chinery, tools,  general  plant,  etc.,  are  really  means 
of  production  in  the  sense  of  contributing  of  them- 
selves to  production,  then  a  yevy  curious  question 
arises  between  the  capitalist  and  the  Socialist.    Either 


CAPITAL  AND  THE  PRODUCTIVE  FACTORS.     175 

the  capitalist  must  surrender  what  his  labor  has 
earned,  directl}-  hj  his  individual  application,  and 
indirectly  by  the  natural  production  of  the  goods, 
tools,  etc.,  to  the  state  to  be  distributed  promis- 
cuously, by  a  ratio  of  need,  not  of  deed ;  or  else  the 
Socialist  must  abandon  all  hope  and  purpose  of  im- 
proving the  condition  of  those  who  do  the  labor  of 
the  Avorld.  Between  these  two  diametrically  antag- 
onistic claims  there  seems  to  me  to  be  but  one  point 
where  reconciliation  is  possible.  That  is  by  the 
elimination  of  land  from  the  category  of  things  pur- 
chasable by  labor,  because  not  producible  by  labor, 
and  a  return  to  the  natural  right  of  labor  to  reap  the 
fruits  of  its  own  application.  If  this  should  leave 
the  question  unsettled  as  to  whether  goods  and  tools 
produced  goods  and  tools,  it  would  leave  it  in  a  fair 
way  of  settlement.  At  least  it  would  no  longer  allow 
the  capitalist  to  add  to  the  earnings  of  his  own  labor, 
and  of  his  goods  and  tools,  the  natural  produce  of 
the  land,  and  so  deprive  other  labor  of  its  natural 
opportunity  and  reward.  The  Socialist  should  con- 
sider, also,  upon  what  ground  he  makes  the  claim 
that  capital  ought  to  release  its  control  of  machinery 
and  plant  in  the  interests  of  society.  If  they  are 
really  productive,  why  should  the  owner  be  required 
to  surrender  their  earnings  ?  If  they  are  not  produc- 
tive, but,  on  the  contrar}',  require  to  have  their  wear 
and  tear  and  natural  decay  constantly  replaced  by 
labor,  and  are  only  made  to  appear  productive  by 
their  false  relation  with  a  really  productive  element, 
the  land,  then  indeed  his  protest  against  such  capi- 
talistic use  is  reasonable  and  just;  but,  in  that  case, 
it  by  no  moans  needs  that  the  state  should  take  the 


176  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

plant  from  tlie  owners ;  it  only  needs  that  it  should 
cease  to  guard  the  false  relation,  and  by  opening  to 
the  enjoyment  of  labor  its  only  j)roductive  comple- 
ment— the  land.  In  the  one  case,  he  would  make  a 
rational  demand,  which  no  casuistry  can  deny ;  in 
the  other,  the  inconsistent  requirement  that  success- 
ful workers  shall  be  deprived  of  the  natural  fruits  of 
their  labor,  and  of  the  peaceful  enjoyment  of  what  is 
a  natural  growth  of  those  fruits. 

Nor  is  the  dilemma  of  the  capitalist  less  embar- 
rassing. If  he  takes  the  position  that  his  plant  is 
productive,  and  that  his  wealth  truly  represents  the 
production  of  his  labor,  and  the  auxiliary  earnings 
of  such  production,  and  that  the  condition  of  the 
poor  and  improvident  is  really  the  result  of  natural 
law,  still  he  cannot  deny  the  right  of  society  to  protect 
and  support  the  poor,  who  are  destitute  of  productive 
means  to  help  themselves.  And  thus  escaping  the 
Scylla  of  "  social  democracy,"  he  will  fall  into  the 
Charybdis  of  "  govermental  distribution  of  burdens," 
the  Communism  of  the  state.  But  when  capitalism 
will  yield,  or  shall  be  shorn  of  its  usurped  dominion 
over  the  land,  to  which  it  can  produce  no  shadow  of 
natural  or  justifiable  title,  it  may  confidently  appeal 
to  the  sense  of  justice  in  mankind  to  protect  it  in  the  * 
possession  of  all  those  things  to  which  a  labor  title 
can  be  shown. 

But  the  assumption  of  the  capitalist  and  the  Social- 
ist in  regard  to  the  productive  power  of  labor  pro- 
ducts is  without  the  least  foundation  in  fact.  There 
is  only  an  accumulation  of  products  ;  no  such  thing  as 
production  begetting  production.  It  is  true  that 
machinery,  plant,  and  stock,  which  are  only  the  pro- 


ACTIVE  FACTOR  IN  PRODUCTION.        177 

duction  of  labor,  are  consumed  in  new  productions ; 
but  that  is  only  because  there  is  demand  for  the  new 
production  rather  than  the  old.  The  consumption  of 
these  to  produce  the  new  creates  a  new  demand  for 
the  application  of  labor  to  their  reproduction,  and  so 
the  circle  is  constantl}'  repeating  itself.  The  cost  of 
tools  is  always  the  labor  necessary  to  produce  or  re- 
produce them.  Their  use  in  production  is  only  such 
labor  as  is  saved  by  it  to  the  series  of  productions  in 
which  they  are  employed  and  consumed.  In  any  in- 
dustrial or  economic  sense,  meaihs  of  production  are 
limited  to  labor  and  the  raw  material. 

ACTIVE   FACTOR    IN  PRODUCTION. 

The  dominating  factor  in  production  is  human  labor. 
Man,  the  worker,  is  the  active  and  moving  force  in  all 
social  industry  or  development.  He  is  so  constituted  as 
to  require  a  supply  of  material  food  and  also  constant 
activity.  The  muscle  that  does  not  find  its  appro- 
priate nourishment  withers  or  wastes  away  ;  but  so 
also  does  the  muscle  that  ceases  to  be  used.  And 
this  is  correspondingly  true  in  respect  to  every  phys- 
ical or  mental  power  of  the  man.  Nature  herein  in- 
dicates, with  a  directness  not  to  be  mistaken,  that 
human  wants  are  to  he  supplied,  and  by  human  activities. 
No  reasoning  seems  required  upon  a  point  so  plain  ; 
and  yet  so  fertile  is  false  education  and  idle  igno- 
rance, that  whole  classes  are  taught  to  believe  that 
all  industry  is  a  curse  and  a  disgrace,  and  that  to  be 
usefull}'  active  is  to  forfeit  respectable  social  posi- 
tion. This  is  true  to  a  great  extent  of  the  cliildren, 
especially  the  daughters,  of  tlio  rich,  in  tlie  fashion- 


178  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

able  world,  no  matter  how  the  riches  upon  which 
they  pride  themselves  may  have  been  accumulated 
by  their  immediate  or  remote  ancestors  ;  whether  by 
severe  application  and  intense  activity  in  laborious 
and  vulgar  avocations,  or  by  methods  now  deemed 
predatory  and  criminal.  And  thus  the  mind  of  the 
thoughtless  becomes  inflated  with  the  idea  that  to 
leave  one-half  of  the  man,  his  activity,  without  use 
ennobles  and  distinguishes  him. 

To  the  enlightened  mind,  on  the  contrary,  to  appro- 
priate the  goods  of  life  without  serving  is  the  most 
childish  and  ignoble  of  all  things.  To  desire  a  con- 
dition for  self  or  oifsjjring,  such  as  will  relieve  from 
the  necessity  of  exercising  the  activities  of  our  nat- 
ure, is  to  desire  deterioration  and  effeminacy.  "We 
shall  see,  at  length,  that  it  is  only  under  misdirection 
and  the  usurpation  of  the  elements  essen"'^ial  to  hu- 
man life  and  happiness,  by  a  few,  that  slothful  ease 
appears  preferable  to  that  depth  of  deprivation  to 
which  such  usurpation  dooms  the  worker,  whose  ex- 
cessive labor  dwarfs  his  mind,  while  it  fails  to  supply 
the  required  nutriment  to  sustain  his  body  in  health.* 

Activity  is  the  normal  condition  of  all  the  human 
faculties.  Man  needs  no  following  with  a  lash  to  induce 

"  Since  wherever  a  mouth  and  a  back  are  created  a  pah-  of  hands 
also  is  provided,  the  inference  is  unavoidable  that  the  liands  are  to  be 
used  to  supply  the  needs  of  the  mouth  and  the  back.  Now,  as  there  is 
one  mouth  to  each  pair  of  hands,  and  each  mouth  must  be  filled,  it  fol- 
lows, quite  naturally,  that  if  a  single  pair  of  hands  refuse  to  do  its  work, 
then  the  mouth  goes  hungry  or,  what  is  worse,  the  work  is  done  by 
other  liands.  In  the  one  pase  the  supply  failing,  an  inconvenience  is 
suffered  and  the  man  dies;  in  the  other  case,  he  eats  and  wears  tlie 
earnest  of  another  man's  work,  and  so  infiicls  a  wrong  "  (Thoughts  ou 
Labor :  Theodore  Parker). 


ACTIVE  FACTOR  IN  PRODUCTION.        179 

him  to  work.  Labor  only  becomes  irksome  and  re- 
pulsive when  a  few  by  shirking  their  share  can  throw 
burdensome  proportions  upon  others,  or  when,  ex- 
cluded from  the  laboratory  Avhich  nature  has  provided 
him,  the  laborer  has  to  beg  the  privilege  to  toil  from 
his  fellow,  who  slanders  their  common  nature  by  as- 
suming that  it  is  laziness,  and  not  a  sense  of  injustice 
and  despair,  which  makes  hireling  labor  distasteful. 
As  the  very  nature  of  the  two  factors  in  industry 
requires  their  equal  proportion  to  each  other,  so  ex- 
ercise of  the  functions  of  production  and  assimila- 
tion retain  a  definite  ratio  to  one  another.  In  igno- 
rajice  of  these  laws,  the  child  whose  need  of  food  is 
first  felt  becomes  liable,  through  mere  habit,  to 
develop  his  appetite  more  rapidly  than  his  love  of 
motion.  Such  become  gluttonous  and  indolent,  or 
intemperate  ;  but  usually  the  attraction  "  to  do  "  is 
early  manifested,  and  it  is  often  more  difficult  to 
suppress  this  tendency  than  any  other,  or  to  govern 
it  without  directing  it  into  the  channel  of  some  use- 
ful industry.  The  terrible  cmun  with  which  all  idle 
people,  however  cultured,  are  afflicted,  is  but  an  ear- 
nest remonstrance  of  our  nature  against  the  depart- 
ure from  her  economics.  Correlative  to  this  are 
the  results  at  the  other  extreme,  where  overaction 
and  insufficient  or  unsuited  nutriment  develops  the 
muscuhir  at  the  expense  of  the  mental  forces.  Cult- 
ure, refinement,  and  manly  intellection  are  impossi- 
ble! to  tli(!  many  in  such  condition  ;  and  yet  tlie  law 
of  com])ensation  often  asserts  itself  by  retaining  in 
the  ov<a-task(id  and  toil-hardened  frame  a  generous 
and    cheerful    disi)osition    and    inflexible    intcigrity, 


180  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

nature  thus  testifying,  even  in  extreme  subjection,  to 
tlie  nobility  of  man  and  the  dignity  of  work. 

The  facts  so  familiar  to  the  commonest  observa- 
tion show  that  the  love  of  active  life,  the  zest  of 
beholding  things  grow  under  our  hand,  whether  in 
the  fields  of  agriculture,  with  trees  and  fruits  and 
flowers,  or  with  the  mechanical  constructions  or 
artistic  forms,  furnishes  abundant  motive  and  in- 
ducement, without  lash  or  bribe,  to  prompt  the  man 
to  attainment  in  every  aim  of  life. 

A  great  motive  to  industry  and  to  the  investigation 
of  the  law  of  its  development  lies  in  the  love  of  off- 
spring. This  alone  is  able,  with  birds  and  animals, 
to  secure  the  most  patient  and  protracted  toil.  As 
related  to  remoter  posterity  in  man,  it  becomes  iden- 
tified with  the  greatest  social  problems.  It  prompts 
the  man  to  labor,  and  to  conserve  the  products  of 
industry.  The  labors  thus  induced  serve  first  to 
supply  his  own  wants,  and  then  to  add  to  the  goods 
preserved  to  society,  in  order  that  the  circumstances 
of  his  children,  and  his  children's  children,  may  be 
improved.  Thus  also  will  he  serve,  under  equitable 
rule,  the  future  general  society,  and  gratify  that 
higher  love  for  man  which  looks  beyond  the  mere 
ties  of  relationship  or  nationality,  or  even  of  time. 

That  society,  of  which  this  working  agent  is  a  tem- 
porary member,  has  progressed  through  what  may  be 
termed  Natural  Selection,  there  can  be  no  doubt. 
Whatever  we  may  accept  or  deny  as  to  theories  re- 
specting man's  origin  or  descent,  we  cannot  ignore 
the  varying  characters  of  men  and  of  peoples,  as  well 
as  of  species  in  the  animal  and  vegetable  worlds. 

But  the  limit  of  natural   selection   seems   to   be 


ACTIVE  FACTOR  IN  PEODUCTION.        181 

reached  as  regards  man  when  the  race  has  suffi- 
ciently advanced  to  admit  of  a  more  integral  devel- 
opment, so  that  the  multiplication  of  the  species  may 
be  kept  within  requisite  limits  by  intelligent  selec- 
tion, if  indeed  any  tendency  to  over-population  ex- 
ists, of  which  there  appears  a  very  reasonable  doubt. 
War  and  the  destruction  of  the  weak  by  the  strong 
serve,  then,  no  purpose  now,  but  retard  social  evo- 
lution. Industry  need  no  longer  be  enslaved,  but  by 
liberation  and  wise  organization  may  become  attract- 
ive, so  as  no  longer  to  need  force  or  fraud  to  utilize 
its  activities. 
-  Another  consideration  indicates  the  limit  of  the 
principle.  In  the  lower  species  natural  and,  indeed, 
the  most  careful,  intelligent  selection  only  develops 
special  qualities.  Thus,  great  speed  in  the  horse  is 
wholly  incompatbile  with  great  strength  for  draft. 
So,  by  the  rule  of  force  and  destructive  competition, 
we  may  produce  a  class  or  warriors  and  of  slaves,  of 
capitalists  and  of  hirelings,  but  never  a  well-devel- 
oped man. 

To  eflfect  this  an  integral  system  of  education  and 
of  industry  is  required,  and  the  outworn  antago- 
nisms and  hazards,  which  propel  ever  to  extremes, 
must  be  dropped  out  of  our  social  life  and  reciprocity 
take  its  place.  It  is  a  favorite  apothegm  of  the  schools 
thut  man  is  ever  the  same,  and  that  since  he  has  al- 
ways been  swayed  by  love  of  gain,  he  always  will  be. 
But  nothing  is  more  certain  than  the  progressive 
change  Avhich  constant!}',  though  gradually,  takes 
place  in  his  purposes  and  pursuits.  The  forced  la- 
bors of  the  past  b(!conie  the  sports  of  the  })resent. 
The  wager  of  buttle  and  forfeit  of  life  and  goods  is 


182  SOCIAL   WEALTH. 

cliangecT  to  competitive  games  and  harmless  pas- 
times, and  the  desperate  struggle  for  existence  is 
turned  to  mutual  help  and  reciprocal  exchange.  If, 
indeed,  the  old  barbarity  has  sheltered  itself  in  the 
more  recent  forms  of  trade,  it  has  been  under  dis- 
guise until  found  by  experience  of  its  results  to  be  i 
what  it  really  is,  or  has  had  its  vail  removed  by  its 
own  votaries,  who  can  devise  no  other  available  de- 
fense for  it,  and  hence  urge  its  antiquity. 

A  learned  professor  of  one  of  our  most  popular 
universities  avers  that  we  must  have  "  the  survival 
of  the  fittest  or  of  the  ^/^nfittest;"  and  this  would  fol- 
low as  a  loo;ical  conclusion  if  we  admitted  his  as- 
sumed  premises,  that  one  must  destroy  the  other.  But 
if  history  has  any  meaning,  however,  the  only  neces- 
sity, if  it  now  exists,  is  found  in  the  blind  stupidity 
and  brute-like  passion  which  it  is  the  business  of 
social  science  to  enlighten  and  of  social  organization 
to  control,  so  that  both  the  fit  and  the  unfit  may  sur- 
vive, and  each  be  benefited  far  more  than  either 
could  possibly  be  by  the  destruction  of  the  other. 

If,  however,  it  should  apj^ear  in  any  case  that  one 
could  improve  his  own  condition  by  destroying  the 
other,  that  is  a  contingency  which  calls  for  the  pro- 
tection of  society,  which  to  save  itself  must  guard  its 
weakest  member.  Superior  physical  strength  and 
business  tact  are  not  the  only  requisites  to  social 
service,  and  whatever  the  individual  may  think  or  de- 
sire, society  cannot  afi'ord  to  deprive  itself  of  the  ser- 
vice of  a  Homer  or  a  Milton,  a  Pope  or  a  Byron,  be- 
cause of  physical  defects,  or  of  a  Goldsmith  or  a 
Burns  because  they  could  not  drive  an  advantageous 
bargain.     The  rudest  social  economy  must  embi'ace 


ACTIVE   FACTOR  IN   PRODUCTION.  183 

the  utilizing  of  the  less  as  well  as  of  the  more  per- 
fect. The  agriculturist  who  should  relj  upon  natu- 
ral selection,  instead  of  intelligent  selection,  would 
have  an  abundant  growth  of  weeds,  brush,  parasites, 
insects  and  vermin,  but  a  "  beggarly  account "  of 
fruits,  grains,  and  of  domestic  fowls  and  animals.  The 
gi'eat  champions  of  the  doctrine  of  natural  selection, 
Spencer  and  Tyndall,  have  each,  if  I  mistake  not, 
been  upheld  by  the  assistance  of  others,  and  of  gov- 
ernment, in  their  struggle  to  place  before  mankind 
great  philosophical  and  scientific  truths.  Can  they 
give  any  good  reason  wh}'  the  faithful  worker  in  any 
field  should  be  "let  alone"  in  his  struggle  for  life, 
while  building  for  society,  any  more  than  themselves  ? 
Not  only  the  institution  which  boasts  the  possession 
of  a  Sumner  among  its  faculty,  but  every  institution  of 
its  kind  in  our  country  is  endowed  by  public  or  private 
beneficence,  and  could  not  survive  a  day  if  it  should  ba 
withdrawn.  It  cannot  fail  to  be  seen  how  appro- 
priate is  the  teaching  of  "  Icdss&z-faire  "  by  the  pro- 
fessors and  scholars  produced  by  institutions  sup- 
ported and  upheld  by  the  very  opposite  practice. 
That  such  institutions  do  not  encourage  any  investi- 
gation of  the  industrial  problem  is  not  to  be  won- 
dered at.  How  can  they  discuss  the  interest  ami 
rent  questions  when  their  very  existence  depends  upon 
the  annual  tribute  capitalized  funds  and  lands  en- 
able them  to  lay  upon  labor  ?  The  perpetual  bribe 
of  which  they  are  thus  the  recipients  is  too  weighty 
to  be  overborne  by  the  wail  of  suffering  toil  or  the 
appeal  of  the  honest  thinker.  They  can  scarce  desire 
the  prc^nnulgationof  a  truth  which  would  disestablisli 
their  institutions.     As  little  can  they  desire  the  sur- 


184  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

vival  of  the  fittest  since  they  are  holding  up  an  insti- 
tution which  would  fall  of  itself,  and  are  being  held 
up  themselves  by  a  system  of  capitalism  dependent 
wholly  upon  laws  and  customs  established  and  main- 
tained to  thwart  equal  opportunity  and  to  prevent 
freedom  of  competition  and  of  exchange. 

The  reception  which  a  patient  investigation  of  the 
subject  is  likely  to  meet  can  be  readily  imagined 
when  we  consider  that  the  object  sought  in  introduc- 
ing the  question  of  survival  into  the  labor  discussion 
is  to  justify  a  system  which  denies  equal  opportunity 
for  the  very  purpose  of  relieving  favorites  from  the 
ojDeration  of  the  law  of  competition  they  laud.  It  is 
capitalism,  not  industry,  which  is  ever  devising  sine- 
cures and  exemptions  from  any  struggle  whatever. 
As  an  instance,  a  noted  millionaire  has  lately  set- 
tled upon  his  son,  who  failed,  not  in  a  struggle  to  live 
by  honest  labor,  but  in  a  contest  as  a  Wall-street 
"  gambler,"  five  thousand  dollars  a  month.  Profes- 
sor Sumner  may  be .  right  as  regards  those  who  are 
spared  the  "  struggle  for  existence "  by  annuities 
and  unearned  incomes.  Doubtless  we  have  in  their 
cases  the  survival  of  the  unfittest. 

With  equal  opportunity  and  access  to  the  natural 
elements,  a  healthful  struggle  would  result,  which,  if 
it  did  not  involve  the  destruction  of  some  by  others, 
would  secure  the  survival  of  the  industrious  and 
frugal,  and  correct  the  proclivities  of  the  idle  and 
predatory.  Our  present  system  of  division  is  scarcely 
more  than  a  plan  for  sustaining  luxurious  paupers. 

The  assumption  of  a  necessity  for  the  ignoble  and 
destructive  strife  in  industry  and  trade  will  not 
endure  the  slightest  investigation.     The  Malthusiau 


ACTIVE  FACTOR  IN  PRODUCTION.        185 

theory  is  the  only  logical  one  in  regard  to  it,  and 
that  has  been  shown  to  be  groundless  by  Mr.  George 
and  others.  In  truth,  as  he  has  shown,  the  more 
society  is  advanced  in  numbers,  intelligence,  and  in- 
dustry, the  farther  it  is  removed  from  any  danger  of 
pressing  on  the  means  of  subsistence.  It  is  in 
sparsely  settled  and  savage  countries  that  famines 
occur,  or  in  populous  states,  as  in  Ireland  and  India, 
where  the  people  are  miserably  misgoverned  or  over- 
governed.  When  the  white  inhabitants  of  this  con- 
tinent were  numbered  by  thousands,  the  different 
nationalities  were  in  constant  war  with  the  red  men 
and  with  each  other,  and  the  struggle  was  deemed 
essential  to  the  safety  and  success  of  each,  as  well  as 
to  establish  the  fittest  survival.  But  now,  with  nearly 
a  hundred  millions,  life  is  better  sustained  and  wars 
are  few,  arising  now  from  lack  of  statesmanship,  or  a 
yielding  to  narrow  prejudice,  rather  than  from  any 
natural  tendency  or  civil  or  economic  necessit3^ 
The  active  agent  or  factor  is  not  one  involved  in  the 
problems  of  over-population,  or  in  the  life  and  death 
struggle.  He  is  a  member  of  society,  the  social  unit. 
The  development  to  extremes  begets  dissohition,  and 
•  the  society  Avhich  does  this  must  perish.  Science 
points  to  a  development  through  union,  under  nat- 
ural equit)'  and  justice,  in  which  industry  and  econ- 
omy shall  crown  the  victor  with  the  laurels  which 
peace  and  plenty  afford,  and  encourage,  not  destroy, 
the  less  successful. 

Of  one  thing,  however,  we  need  to  take  note.  The 
worker  is  an  ever-changing  person.  Individual  men 
come  and  go ;  the  race  remains  forever.  Tlie  rela- 
tion, tljcrofore,  of  the  worker  to  the  soil  or  object 


186  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

wrought  upon,  is  transient  and  passing.  It  was  said 
by  tlie  great  Hebrew  lawgiver,  as  from  the  omnipotent 
Worker :  "  The  hxnd  is  mine,  and  ye  are  sojourners 
with  me."  "  The  land  shall  not  be  sold  forever." 
The  sojourner  can  control  no  longer  than  he  stays. 
This  dominion  over  the  land  ends  with  his  occu- 
pancy. His  only  ownership  is  an  "  occupying 
ownership."* 

PASSIVE  FACTOR  IN  PEODUCTION. 

The  great  fountain-head  from  which  the  material 
elements  in  production  are  derived  is  the  land.  The 
matter  of  the  earth  is  so  disposed  by  nature,  and  the 
elements  of  fertility  so  deposited,  as  to  render  culti- 
vation a  pleasant  and  compensating  employment. 
In  the  passive  factor  is  embraced  all  raw  material, 
or  that  which  has  not  been  affected  by  human  activ- 
ities. The  natural  productions  are  really  a  part  of 
the  earth,  and  must  be  considered  as  such  in  any 
economic  discussion.  The  earth  forms  the  founda- 
tion of  all  industry  of  the  man,  and  is  the  point 
where  his  activity  meets  and  co-operates  with  the 
heat,  the  light,  the  air,  and  the  moisture,  indispens- 
able to  production  and  to  all  life.  Only  uj^on  the 
land  has  he  any  means  of  contact  with  them,  and 
otherwise  can  have  no  stable  existence.  An  allot- 
ment of  land,  then,  as  separate  property,  or  as  a 
common  right  with  others,  is  a  first  requisite  in  re- 

*  This  terra  is  used  by  Mr.  "Wallace  to  signify  the  method  of  land- 
holding  under  "Land  Nationalization."  It  expresses,  however,  the 
natural  law  of  ownership  more  nearlj'  than  any  term  heretofore 
employed. 


PASSIVE   FACTOE   IN  PRODUCTION.  187 

ducing  industry  to  any  intelligible  problem.  Not 
only  must  the  land  exist,  but  its  relation  to  the 
worker  must  be  defined  ere  a  single  step  can  be  taken 
in  subjecting  industrial  production  to  any  system. 
Science  absolutely  refuses  to  attempt  any  soiutit)n 
of  the  industrial  question  until  tliis  is  determined; 
for  otherwise  it  can  assign  no  sphere  to  labor,  no 
field  for  the  exercise  of  man's  activity.  There  may 
exist  spontaneous  productions  of  nature,  without 
man  and  his  labor ;  but  without  the  earth  no  indus- 
trial production  can  exist ;  the  labor,  and  even  the 
man  himself,  disappears. 

In  the  very  statement  of  the  industrial  factors, 
then,  we  encounter  a  positive  institution,  which  for- 
ever bars  anv  system  of  industry  which  can  be  re- 
duced to  scientific  terms,  because  it  confounds  all 
terms  and  agencies  which  could  help  to  a  solution. 

If  land  and  labor  are  the  factors,  and  the  only 
factors,  in  production,  it  follows  necessarily  that 
there  must  be  freedom  from  any  and  all  arbitrary 
control  over  them,  such  as  may  prevent  the  access  of 
the  one  to  the  other,  commensurate  with  the  re- 
quired action.  Any  other  control  of  the  soil  than 
that  of  the  cultivating  occupant  can  but  fetter  and 
cripple  labor  and  retard  production.  The  freedom 
of  man  without  freedom  of  the  land  can  benefit 
neither.  Science  can  no  more  accept  the  system  of 
exclusive  land  tenui-e,  and  endeavor  to  reconcile  in- 
dustrial life  with  that,  and  to  build  a  system  of  eco- 
nomics upon  it,  tlian  it  can  accept  tlie  mythologies, 
theologies,  astrologies,  and  alchemies  wliicli  liave 
been,  or  may  now  prevuil,  witli  which  the  intellec- 
tual minds  of  tlie  past  employed  themselves  in  the 


188  SOCIAL   WEALTH. 

absence  of  any  scientific  method  of  arriving  at  truth. 
Any  system  established  under  nescience  must  sub- 
mit to  the  crucial  test  of  scientific  examination. 
Science  cannot  become  its  apologist  and  special 
jDleader. 

Exclusive  dominion  of  land  divorces  the  natural 
factors,  and  as  to  its  whole  extent  bars  productive 
industry.  An  axiom  so  plain  requires  no  argument. 
Its  results  are  seen  in  extended  private  domain,  poorly 
and  but  partially  cultivated  even  in  the  most  popu- 
lous districts.  The  j)eople  dispossessed  of  their  inheri- 
tance crowd  to  the  cities,  where  vast  accumulations 
of  absorbed  wealth  invite  to  employment,  sometimes 
useful  but  often  hurtful  to  the  man,  to  social  well 
being,  and  precarious  to  the  unskilled  or  improvi- 
dent. The  fertile  properties  of  the  soil  are  wasted, 
and  so  cannot  be  returned  to  maintain  its  productive 
capacity. 

This  country  has  an  extensive  domain  of  fertile 
soil.  A  considerable  portion  of  its  people  live  yet  in 
independent  homes,  but  through  our  system  of  unre- 
stricted ownershij),  and  the  accumulative  power  of 
capitalism,  the  land  is  being  absorbed  rapidly  in  few 
hands,  with  results  always  unfriendly  to  industry  and 
the  well-being  of  those  who  toih  This  barrier  be- 
tween the  factors  prevents  labor  from  finding  em- 
ployment and  the  land  from  being  improved.  To  re- 
move this  barrier  is  not  the  business  of  science,  but 
merel}^  to  point  out  the  consequence  of  the  institu- 
tion, and  the  effect  of  the  natural  freedom  of  these 
agents.  Remedies  are  not  Avithin  its  province.  Only 
political  and  legislative  quacks  will  seek  to  redress 
by  statutory  enactment  and  positive  institution  the 


PASSIVE   FACTOR  IN   PRODUCTION.  189 

wrongs  which  arise  mainly  from  a  deprivation  of  lib- 
erty such  enactments  have  caused  and  which  only 
liberty  can  correct. 

It  may  be  proper  to  notice  here  what  the  leader  in 
the  modern  school  of  economics,  Mr.  Macleod,  calls 
the  "  third  source  of  wealth,"  and,  if  such  existed,  he 
could  be  relied  upon  to  find  it.  He  says  (E.  E.,  164) : 
"  Eights  are  created  by  the  mere  fiat  of  the  human 
will  .  .  .  and  extinguished  equally  by  the  fiat  of  the 
human  will.  But  these  rights  may  be  bought  and 
sold  or  exchanged;  their  vcdue  may  be  measured  in 
money ;  they  form  the  most  colossal  commerce  in 
modern  times  ;  we  have  valuable  products  created  out 
of  the  absolute  nothing  by  the  mere  fat  of  the  human 
will  and  decreated  into  nothing.  There  is  a  third 
source  of  wealth  besides  the  earth  and  the  human 
mind — the  human  will."  In  the  above  extract  we 
have  the  truth  fully  shown,  which  we  have  endeavored 
to  make  plain  elsewhere,  that  these  "  private  rights," 
which  "  form  the  colossal  fortunes  of  the  times,"  are 
the  mere  creatures  of  arbitrary  will.  As  a  conse- 
quence they  do  not  create  social  wealth,  but  consti- 
tute merely  a  means  of  appropriating  social  wealth  to 
private  uses,  "  out  of  the  absolute  nothing  "  so  far  as 
any  return  of  service  to  society  is  concerned,  and 
''decreated  into  nothing'"  when  society  looks  for  its 
plundered  stores. 

But  while  they  are  in  being  they  can  "be  bought 
and  sold  and  their  value  measured  in  money."  And 
so  might  human  beings  or  anj'tliiug  wliatever  which 
the  law  made  property.  But  whoever  wants  to  pur- 
chase those  rights  after  they  have  been  created 
from    notliing,  will  find  tliat  he   has  at  least  to  give 


190  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

somefhing  in  exchani^e  for  them  which  is  veritable  and 
which  his  will  alone  will  not  reproduce  without  hard 
labor.  And  when  these  values  are  decreated  into 
notliiug,  as  in  the  case  of  declining  shares  and  bonds 
and  of  periodic  bankruptcies,  they  are  usually  found 
in  the  hands  of  those  other  than  favorites  of  the  fiat. 

But  with  the  leading  thought  of  the  paragraph,  the 
"  third  source  of  wealth,"  we  have  yet  to  deaL  I  have 
sought  in  vain,  through  the  popular  writers,  for  any 
evidence  that  there  was  "  a  third  source  of  wealth," 
besides  "  the  earth  and  the  man,"  including  all  its 
forces  and  opportunities  and  all  his  power,  mental 
and  physical.  But  I  have  found  it  at  last  in  what 
Mr.  Macleod  calls  the  "  human  will."  But  since  the 
human  will  is  but  one  of  the  elements  of  the  human 
mind,  "  emotion,  intellect,  will,"  I  can  just  as  readily 
find  five  as  three.  To  what  ridiculous  shifts  does 
this  professor  of  economic  prestidigitation  resort  to 
cheat  the  worker  out  of  his  labor-title  to  the  wealth 
he  has  created  !  Whether  it  be  through  manual  or 
mental  toil,  the  emotion,  the  intellect,  and  the  will 
are  all  employed  in  ever}^  form  of  work  and  are  part 
of  the  worker's  self.  I  have  yet  to  find  a  "  third 
source  "  or  factor  of  social  wealth. 

Mr.  George,  although  repeatedly  stating  that  the 
factors  in  production  are  "  dual,  not  tripartite,"  con- 
tinually treats  capital  as  a  third  factor,  though  par- 
tially disclaiming  such  purpose  by  asserting  that 
"  labor  and  capital  are  but  different  forms  of  the  same 
thing — human  exertion,"  and  that  the  "  use  of  capi- 
tal in  production  is,  therefore,  but  a  mode  of  labor." 
Undoubtedly  there  must  be,  as  he  says,  "  a  point  at, 
or,  rather,  about  which  the  rate  of  interest"  to  this 


PASSIVE  FACTOR  IN  PRODUCTION.  '     191 

particular  mode  or  labor  "  must  tend  to  settle,  since 
unless  such  an  equilibrium  were  effected,  labor  would 
not  accept  the  iise  of  capital,  or  capital  would  not  be 
placed  at  the  disposal  of  labor."  But  he  makes  no 
attempt  to  show  what  this  point  of  equilibrium  is, 
nor  do3S  he  seem  to  apprehend  that,  under  freedom 
of  the  soil  and  opportunity  to  labor,  it  would  vary 
from  what  capital  is  now  enabled  to  extort,  through 
its  power  to  monojDolize  the  land. 

The  natural  point  of  equilibrium  unquestionably  is 
zero,  since  one  side  of  an  equation  minus  the  other 
side  equals  0.  The  capital,  which  is  labor,  stored  up 
in  matter,  as  he  says,  must  necessarily  balance  with 
equal  amounts  of  the  same  thing  stored  in  muscle, 
and  if  circumstances  favored  one  mode  at  one  time,  it 
must  vibrate  b}'  natural  law  of  supply  and  demand  as 
far  to  the  other  side,  the  point  of  rest  being  nought. 

His  confusion  of  thought  upon  this  point  is  inex- 
plicable. He  says  "  the  reward  of  capital  and  the 
reward  of  labor  will  be  equal,  that  is  to  say,  will  give 
an  equally  attractive  result  for  the  exertion  or  sacri- 
fice involved."  "What  can  he  mean  ?  Who  makes 
the  exertion  or  sacrifice — the  capital  or  the  capitalist? 
Tf  the  capitalist,  tlien  for  such  exertion  or  sacrifice 
his  share  is  in  proportion  to  that  which  the  other, 
labor,  has  contributed  of  exertion  or  sacrifice.  If  he 
means  that  the  capital  has  made  the  sacrifice  or  ex- 
ertion, then  he  makes  it  not  a  passive  but  an  active 
agent.  No  wonder  he  thinks  it  impossible  to  formu- 
late the  thing  "  as  wages  .are  habitually  estimated  in 
quantity  and  interest  in  a  ratio."  Had  he  said  that 
this  ratio  was  a  dui)licato  one,  while  wages  were  pro- 
portioned by  "  equal  difl'erence,"  the  utter  dishonest^' 


192  SOCIAL   WEALTH. 

of  tliis  capitalistic  formula  would  liave  beeu  betrayed. 
After  all  his  special  plea  for  capital,  he  at  last,  how- 
ever, falls  back  upon  the  ground  that  interest  is  di- 
rectly connected  with  "  the  law  of  rent,"  although  mis- 
takenly holding  that  "  as  rent  arises,  interest  will  fall 
as  wages  faU."  And  yet  he  concludes  (chapter  v. 
Book  3d)  by  reiterating  that  there  are  only  two  fac- 
tors which  "by  their  union  produce  all  wealth."* 

Mr.  Clark,  in  his  "Higher  Law  of  Property," 
blindly  follows  George  in  his  deference  to  the  ex- 
ploded "  rent  theory,"  and  also  in  his  subjection  to 
the  capitalistic  superstition.  Saying  that  land,  or  the 
"  bounty  of  nature,"  is  "  the  primary  source  of  all 
wealth,"  he  continues  :  "  The  next  source  of  wealth 
is  labor.  Man  ajDplies  labor  to  land — to  the  bounty 
of  nature — and  procures  food,  clothing,  shelter  .... 
Then  after  a  while  he  preserves  some  of  his  acquisi- 
tion to  aid  him  in  acquiring  others.  As  soon  as  he 
reaches  this  point,  a  third  factor  enters  into  produc- 
tion— capital.  The  man  has  wealth  in  store  ;  he  is  a 
capitalist." 

"  Land,  labor,  capital.  These  three  things  under- 
lie all  wealth  and  all  exchanges  of  it."  That  is  to 
say,  land,  labor,  and  wealth  underlie  all  wealth  and 
its  exchanges,!  for  he  uses  wealth  and  capital  as 
synonymous  in  the  immediate  context.  Mr.  George 
was  too  shrewd  to  be  caught  in  this  logical  faux  pas, 


*  Asserting  clearly  this  principle,  he  yet  seeks  to  tax  away  the  in- 
crease which  is  due  to  land  and  labor  alone,  and  divide  it  between  capital 
and  labor. 

•fThis  is  as  accurate  as  it  would  be  to  say:  "The  land,  foundation, 
and  houses  underlie  all  houses." 


PASSIVE   FACTOR  IN    PRODUCTION.  193 

and  Mr.  Macleod  avoids  it  altogether,  though  falling 
into  a  still  more  ridiculous  error  to  maintain  the 
same  point,  by  taking  up  one  element  of  the  human 
mind  as  a  thing  distinguishable  from  the  mind  it- 
self. But  the  utter  vacuity  of  common  sense  is  reached 
when  Mr.  Clark,  blindly  following  his  economic 
leader,  intimates  that  the  land  owners  of  the  nations 
"  harvest  all  their  own  immediate  profits  and  ulti- 
mately the  profits  of  capital  and  labor  besides." 

"We  shall  be  unable  to  find,  search  we  never  so  care- 
fully, any  reason  given  for  a  third  source  or  factor  in 
production  which  will  bear  the  least  scrutiny.  Mac- 
leod wrote  for  the  express  purpose  of  proving  that 
labor  was  only  one  of  a  great  variety  of  causes  which 
create  wealth  ;  Mr.  George  to  show  that  both  capital 
and  labor  were  equally  wronged  by  "  private  property 
in  land,"  and  Mr.  Clark,  to  show  that  capitalism  and 
even  landlordism  may  be  allowed  their  present  sway 
if  his  two  per  cent,  tax  be  imposed.  Surely  one  of 
these  would  have  hit  upon  the  "  third  source  "  if  such 
existed,  or  such  notion  were  capable  of  an  intelligible 
statement. 


CHAPTEE  XII. 

PAETNERSHIP   AND    CO-OPERATION. 

A  NOTICEABLE  feature  attending  the  production  of 
any  wealtli  (I  use  the  term  in  its  industrial,  not  its 
trade  sense)  is  that  it  is  always  social.  Whether  it 
proceeds  by  hireling  or  slave-labor,  or  by  a  more  in- 
telligent co-operation,  there  is,  in  acquiring  any 
goods  whatever,  necessarily  a  combination  of  effort. 
Now,  since  labor  and  the  land  are  inseparable  in  any 
industrial  or  economic  problem,  and  since  "  the  earth 
is  the  natural  inheritance  of  mankind,"  it  follows 
that  the  joining  of  labor  to  land  in  all  production 
requiring  more  than  one  man  is  a  partnership.  It 
must  also  follow  that  all  production  under  such  com- 
bination of  effort  is  the  property  of  the  partners  so 
engaged. 

"While  any  particular  establishment  belongs  to 
the  proprietors,  yet  so  long  as  labor  (present)  and 
capital  (past  labor)  are  equally  essential,  any  par- 
ticular business  considered  in  the  aggregate  is  as 
much  that  of  those  who  bring  to  it  the  labor  as  of 
those  who  furnish  the  money.  If  laborers  withdraw 
from  it,  it  comes  to  an  end  as  certainly  as  when  the 
proprietor  closes  his  doors  "  (Justice  T.  M.  Cooley 
in  A^.  A.  Revieio  of  Dec,  1884). 

Distinctive  industries,  as  Avell  as  individuals,  are 
mutually  dependent  on  each   other,  and  intelligent 


f 

PAETNERSHIP   AND    CO-OPERATION.  195 

co-operation  or  reciprocation  is  really  the  life  of  so- 
ciety. In  most  industries,  moreover,  a  large  number 
of  persons  must  work  together  in  concert.  No  doubt 
such  co-operation  constitutes  in  its  essential  features 
a  partnership.  I  can  enter  into  no  detailed  account 
of  the  law  of  partnership,  my  purpose  being  merely 
to  show  that  it  is  a  principle  of  social  industry,  and 
was  derived  from  the  early  community  of  interest  in 
the  early  village  society.  That  it  was  so  derived, 
and  is  really  a  relic  of  the  primitive  organization,  is 
sufficiently  apparent  in  the  simple  characteristics 
the  law  has  preserved  through  all  the  changes  in 
civil  and  political  institutions. 

So  far  as  the  members  of  any  partnership  in  the 
especial  business  in  which  they  engage  are  con- 
cerned, it  is  a  community  of  rights  and  of  goods, 
features  wherein  it  may  vary  from  this  being  the 
result  of  positive  enactment  or  special  agreement. 
These  variations  affect  partnerships,  more  especially, 
which  are  entered  into  for  mere  purposes  of  trade  or 
speculation,  the  widest  departure  being  made  in 
regard  to  joint-stock  companies,  which  make  mem- 
bership, if  such  it  can  be  cjilled,  a  matter  of  bargain 
and  sale  in  the  transfer  of  shares.  This  cannot  be 
done  in  an  ordinary  partnership,  otherwise  the  cap- 
italistic privilege  would  cease  to  remain  such,  change 
only  being  allowed  by  the  retirement  of  one  or  more, 
and  the  admission  of  another  or  others.  In  this 
respect  co-operation,  as  it  has  been  developed  in 
England,  and  to  a  smaller  extent  in  this  country, 
corresponds  to  the  principle  of  partnership,  since  it 
guards  in  somo  degree  against  stock-jobbing,  whi(^h 
has  proved  so  pernicious  in  our  railroad  companies 


196  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

and  other  joint-stock  corporations.  In  these  latter 
we  have  another  instance  of  the  exemption  of  cap- 
italism from  burdens  and  the  triumph  of  "  the 
market,"  which  seeks  the  deduction  of  all  things  to 
its  control,  and  to  make  them  matters  of  sale  and 
purchase.  But  for  this  corporate  monopolies  would 
by  no  means  develop  the  dangerous  powers  they  do. 
Without  it  the  corporators  would  be  more  amenable 
to  public  law  and  could  be  held  in  some  degree  re- 
sponsible for  their  acts. 

Where  two  or  more  are  engaged  in  any  productive 
labor,  they  necessarily  become  partners.  It  would 
by  no  means  require  that  anything  more  should  be 
agreed  to  than  simply  that  they  work  together  in  the 
procurement  of  some  goods.  Both  in  law  and  equity 
they  would  be  partners  and  entitled  to  share  in  di- 
vision, proportionally  to  the  work  done.  In  the  ab- 
sence of  other  contract  or  special  agreement,  no  other 
conclusion  could  be  drawn.  Our  laws,  however,  re- 
garding property,  and  which,  under  the  domination 
of  capitalism,  are  made  without  any  direct  reference 
to  labor,  in  defining  partnerships,  joint-stock  com- 
panies, and  co-operative  societies,  ignore  labor  as  an 
element  in  production,  or,  rather,  in  the  division,  and 
make  each  partner's  or  stockholder's  share  of  the 
dividend  to  depend  upon  the  amount  of  money  or 
other  value  invested.  But  the  silence  of  the  civil  law 
in  regard  to  labor  does  not  make  the  claim  of  labor 
any  the  less  valid.  It  simply  throws  it  back  upon 
the  natural  law  and  equity  of  the  thing.  It  would 
probably  be  claimed  that  the  labor  performed  would 
be  recognized  as  so  much  stock  contributed,  or  as  so 
much  labor  hired  or  purchased  ;  and  doubtless  this 


TARTNERSHIP  AND   CO-OrERATION.  197 

must  be  so.  And  doubtless,  also,  it  is  for  this  reason 
that  the  wages  paid  the  laborer  are  assumed  as  Sifull 
settJemod  of  the  laborer's  claim. 

The  necessity  of  co-operation  in  any  field  of  indus- 
trial enterprise  is  too  apparent  to  require  proof.  The 
very  demand  tor  labor  is  sufficient.  If  a  man  could 
do  everything  by  himself,  he  would  seek  no  helpers. 
Now,  helpers  are  necessarily  copartners  in  produc- 
tion, and,  therefore,  on  the  dying  out  of  slavery,  which 
was  logically  sustained  only  on  the  ground  of  con- 
tract, the  wage  system  was  adopted  to  give  a  fairer 
semblance  to  the  older  fiction  and  device  for  appro- 
priating the  partner's  shares  to  individual  use  by  the 
stronger  and  dominating  member  of  the  industrial 
firm  or  partnership. 

The  effect  of  wages  was  to  modify  the  nature  of 
such  partnership  in  this  way.  The  laborer  was  sup- 
posed to  sell  his  membership  in  the  firm,  from  day  to 
day  or  month  to  month,  as  the  captive  before  had 
been  assumed  to  have  bartered  his  for  life,  and  even 
that  of  his  children  and  posterity  under  slavery. 
Deprived  of  land,  and  therefore  of  opportunity  to  em- 
ploy himself,  he  had  no  alternative  but  to  thus,  like 
Esau,  sell  his  labor  right.  It  was  not  even  necessary 
to  let  him  know  that  he  had  one  to  sell  ;  but  since  it 
was  tliere,  by  this  false  reasoning  it  could  be  demon- 
strated to  him  at  any  time  that  he  had  contracted  it 
away,  if  ever  his  blunted  intellect  should  awaken. 
There  were  also  some  com])ensations  which  ap])ealed 
to  his  dislike  of  intellectual  exertion  and  of  incurring 
personal  responsibility  in  largo  undertakings.  The 
wages,  also,  however  small,  wore  usually  ])ai(l  down 
or  at  short  int(!rvals,  so  tliat  he  would  not  have  to 


198  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

wait  the  slow  process  of  production  before  he  coukl 
enjoy  its  fruits.  This  is  doubtless  one  reason  why 
industrial  co-operative  enterprises  have  usually  failed 
of  success.  The  wages  system,  moreover,  has  its  at- 
tractions, for  as  long  as  wages  are  good  and  employ 
constant,  the  worker  acquiesces  in  the  system  till  an 
industrial  crisis  overtakes  him  and  he  is  thrown  out 
of  employment  or  has  his  wages  greatly  reduced.  It 
is  then  that  he  becomes  the  victim  of  vain  regrets 
and  despair  at  his  hard  lot,  and  harbors  thoughts  of 
retaliation  against  those,  perhaps,  who  are  no  more  to 
blame  for  this  condition  of  things  than  himself.  He 
only  sees  his  employer  or  the  company  who  have  had 
the  direct  benefit  of  his  labor,  but  not  the  operation  of 
those  subtle  influences  which  warp  exchange,  finance, 
and  production  itself  to  the  aggrandizement  of  a  few 
and  the  robbery  of  the  many. 

When  it  is  said  that  all  who  engage  in  production 
are  partners,  it  is  not  intended  by  any  means  to  ap- 
ply it  alone  to  those  who  are  engaged  in  a  special 
branch  or  handicraft.  Every  step  from  the  gathering 
of  the  natural  production  to  the  completion  of  the 
commodity  and  offering  for  consumption  is  co-opera- 
tive ;  the  service  of  the  merchant  and  the  retailer  as 
well  as  the  cultivator  and  doer  of  mechanical  services. 
The  principle  of  equity  applies,  therefore,  to  the  rule 
of  division  and  the  awards  to  services  as  well  as  to  the 
settlement  of  accounts.  It  is  for  this  reason  that 
wages  and  profits  afford  no  scientific  solution,  since, 
though  they  may  be  made  matters  of  contract,  they 
proceed  by  incompatible  methods  and  irreconcilable 
ratios.  The  one  is  computed  by  rate  and  time.  The 
other  by  rate  per  cent,  repeated  at  intervals,  wliich 


PARTNERSHIP   AND   CO-OPERATION.  199 

produces  a  progressive  ratio.  Where  this  amounts 
to  no  more  tliau  a  reasonable  compensation  for  ser- 
vice, the  injustice  of  the  method  does  not  develop  it- 
self ;  but  when  large  values  are  transferred,  the 
profits  become  added  to  the  amount  and  thus  multi- 
ply constantly.  The  wage-worker  can  only  add  his 
daily  net  earnings  when  anj'thing  remains  over  ex- 
penses. This  does  not  increase  his  wages  as  the  in- 
crease of  the  dealer's  stock  increases  his  profits. 

Profits,  as  far  as  they  compensate  service,  do  not, 
however,  like  pure  interest  and  pure  rent,  stand 
wdiolly  dislocated  from  any  economic  or  social  rela- 
tion. A  large  majority  of  those  who  rely  on  profits 
for  their  compensation  do  not  receive  more  than  an 
equitable  share  of  the  general  production  as  comjjeu- 
sation  for  the  service  they  render  the  society  they 
serve.  It  is  only  the  few  who,  by  use  of  large  means 
and  favoring  circumstance,  or,  perhaps,  by  legalized 
monopolies,  which  enable  them  to  operate  without 
competition,  are  able  to  double  their  means,  period- 
ically, instead  of  adding  to  them,  one  by  one,  as  at 
best  the  wage- worker  is  only  able  to  do. 

The  true  merchant  apprehends  that  it  is  real 
service  for  Avhich  he  is  entitled  to  remuneration. 
The  false  merchant  works  for  profits,  and  is  not  a 
co-oporator  in  the  social  industry,  but  a  despoiler 
and  tribute  gatherer.  His  position  to  industr}^  and 
social  life  is  antagonistic.  He  ap[)ears  never  as  a 
co-o])erator  and  helper.  Tlie  division  he  seeks  is 
not  equitable  or  friendly,  but  oppressive  and  dis- 
lu)nost. 

It  will  be  objected,  I  foresee,  that  the  progress  of 
production  would  be  greatly  retarded,  even   if  ulti- 


200  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

mate  success  were  possible,  in  making  every  worker 
in  an  establishment  a  partner,  and  to  have  a  voice  in 
the  management  of  the  affairs  of  the  co-partnership. 
But  I  am  not  advocating  any  special  plan  of  opera- 
tion, only  stating  what  are  the  actual  facts  in  the 
case,  viz.:  that  the  co-workers  are  co- partners. 
Whether  our  civilization  is  sufficiently  advanced  to 
make  practical  the  recognition  of  this  truth  is  an- 
other and  quite  different  question.  And  whether 
the  wage-worker  himself  may  not  prove  the  greatest 
obstacle  to  an  equitable  system  of  industry  and  di- 
vision is  also  one  difficult  at  this  stage  to  be  deter- 
mined. It  is  only  when  all  the  facts  in  any  given 
problem  are  known  that  there  becomes  a  possibility 
of  its  proper  solution.  When  it  is  once  received  as 
a  scientific  proposition  that  ownership  of  the  product 
of  one's  labor  inheres  in  the  laborer,  whether  that 
labor  be  single-handed  or  whether  it  be  exerted  in 
unison  with  another,  or  with  a  thousand  others,  some 
means  of  giving  it  proper  recognition  will  not  be 
wanting,  and  there  is  no  need  to  embarrass  a  scien- 
tific inquiry  by  the  bugbear  of  impracticability.  It 
4  is  of  the  utmost  importance  to  any  exact  solution  of 
the  problem  of  labor,  and  its  equitable  award,  that 
we  divest  ourselves  of  all  those  prejudices  and  super- 
stitions in  regard  to  property  and  the  sacredness  of 
contracts  in  which  capitalism  has  entrenched  itself, 
making  itself,  and  not  labor,  aj^pear  as  the  giver  of 
work  and  the  creator  of  wealth.  At  this  point  labor 
must  take  its  stand  without  compromise,  or  else 
surrender  at  discretion.  For  if  by  joining  his  labor 
with  another,  or  others,  the  worker  loses  his  title  to 
his  product,  then  the  operator  is  under  no  obligation 


CO-OPERATION.  201 

to  give  him  anything  more  than  the  competition 
wages,  and  these  realized,  he  has  nothing  further  to 
cLiim ;  and  when  they  cease  he  has  no  right  to  com- 
plain. If  the  factors  and  the  elements  belong  to  the 
capitalist,  of  course  the  results  also  belong  to  him. 
He  has  purchased  both  the  labor  and  raw  material 
in  the  market,  and  turned  them  into  goods,  and  they 
are  his.  The  labor  reformer  who  yields  here,  ac- 
knowledging that  capital  has  productive  j^ower,  or 
that  the  factors  in  production,  land  and  labor,  are 
marketable  commodities,  kicks  the  ladder  from  under 
him  on  which  he  is  attempting  to  ascend,  and  makes 
his  position  logically  absurd.  It  is  true  the  worker 
may  exchange  his  share  of  the  product  after  the  di- 
vision is  made,  or  agree  beforehand  upon  the  division, 
and  so  accept  a  payment  in  the  form  of  wages ;  but 
to  give  such  transaction  a  show  of  equity,  he  must 
be  at  liberty  to  employ  himself,  because,  if  he  be 
denied  his  natural  opportunity  to  labor,  free  access 
to  the  soil,  he  contracts  under  duress,  and  the  pay- 
ment of  such  wages  does  not  conclude  him.  It  is 
not  a  free,  but  a  compulsory  exchange.  His  claim 
for  settlement  still  remains  good  to  his  share  of  the 
])roduct  of  the  partnership  work,  less  what  has  been 
paid  him,  and  if  is  the  difference  between  such  share  and 
such  payment  ivhirh  constitutes  the  profits  arid  accunnda- 

tiom  of  CAPITALISM. 

CO-OPERATION. 

The  word  which  seems  to  stand  readiest  in  the 
month  oi  the  unstudious  and  unreflecting  wcll-Avishor 
to  tlio  poor  and  toiling,  is  co-operation.  This,  it  is 
thought,  can  work  in  some  wonderful  way  to  icctify 


202  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

the  usurpations  of  power,  tlie  weakness  of  igno- 
rance, and  the  indolence  and  thriftlessness  of  the  im- 
provident. If,  however,  a  little  careful  thought  is 
exercised  in  obtaining  an  understanding  of  what  co- 
operation really  is,  and  what  it  is  not,  much  needless, 
not  to  say  extravagant,  speculation  would  be  avoided. 
The  word  means  simply  "  working  together,"  and  is 
usually,  though  not  necessarily,  contrasted  with  com- 
petition. 

In  its  industrial  application,  it  embraces  the  whole 
field  of  the  division  of  labor  and  of  combination  of 
effort,  and  has,  in  this  respect,  accomplished  all  which 
can  be  accomplished  in  the  sphere  of  production 
while  the  great  inequalities  of  division  remain.  Some 
neophytes  in  social  studies  imagine  they  have  discov- 
ered in  it  the  great  specific  for  the  misfortunes  of 
labor,  and  think  they  see  in  its  mighty  productive 
power  the  means  of  righting  all  wrongs  and  over- 
whelming all  injustice.  They  do  not  consider  that 
every  factory,  every  bonanza  farm,  every  enterprise  in 
which  numbers  are  engaged  and  functions  are  special- 
ized, is  a  truly  co-operative  proceeding.  Even  the 
slave  plantation  is  such  with  its  thousanrl  slaves. 
The  trouble  is  that  these  are  forced,  not  voluntary,  co- 
operations, and  that  this  co-operation  does  not  ex- 
tend to  the  division  of  the  products  of  this  industry. 
While  this  defect  remains,  it  does  not  matter  how 
much  the  association  of  labor  and  capital  and  the 
division  of  labor  may  increase  production;  the  dis- 
proportionate compensation  will  continue.  Propor- 
tionals, added  to  or  subtracted  from  each  other, 
remain  proportionals  still.  To  increase  the  product- 
iveness of  labor  does  not   necessarily  increase  the 


CO-OPERATION.  203 

sliare  which  falls   to   the   laborer,  unless  equitably 
divided  and  exchanged. 

The  advocates  of  simple  co-operation  have  gene- 
rally accepted  the  capitalistic  claim  for  profits  and 
dividends  to  capital,  apparently  ignorant  that  it  is  in 
these  exactions  that  the  whole  burden  falling  upon 
labor  has  its  origin.  Such  co-operation  is  a  mere 
change  of  form,  which  may  give  relief  to  one  class  by 
shifting  the  burden  to  another,  already  staggering 
under  a  too  heavy  load.  To  make  our  large  corpo- 
rations and  industrial  enterprises,  as  they  exist  to- 
day, truly  co-operative,  it  is  only  necessary  to  stop 
the  leakage  due  to  rent,  interest,  and  profits,  and  in- 
fuse a  modicum  of  honesty  into  the  system  of  divid- 
ing the  products  resulting  from  the  labors  of  the 
co-operators  by  striking  an  equation  between  services 
and  compensations.  All  the  elements  are  at  hand  in 
the  account-books  of  any  concern  in  the  land.  And 
any  accountant  can  make  the  proper  balances  if  he  be 
allowed  to  do  so,  by  throwing  out  false  entries  and 
fraudulent  footings. 

It  is  therefore  idle  to  hope  for  more  favorable  re- 
sults from  association  simply.  Division  of  labor 
and  combination  of  effort  are  already  carried  to  ex- 
tremes in  our  industrial  systems.  In  it  specializa- 
tions of  functions  are  carried  to  an  extent  which 
makes  mere  automatons  of  the  operatives.  It 
dwarfs  tlio  body  ;ind  the  mind,  and  leaves  only  one 
faculty  of  mind  or  one  set  of  muscles  active.  Such 
reduction  of  the  man  to  the  exigencies  of  large  pro- 
duction is  Avhfdly  uiniecossavy.  AVith  any  equitable 
system  of  division,  whicli  woidd  secure  tlie  applica- 
tion of  the  activities  of  all,  a  few  hours'  application  to 


204 


SOCIAL  WEALTH. 


one  line  of  productiou  would  suffice  each  day  to  pro- 
duce the  comforts  of  life  for  each,  and  there  would  be 
left  to  all  many  hours  of  each  day  for  healthful  recrea- 
tion and  intellectual  improvement. 


CHAPTEE  XIII. 

Law   of   contracts. 

The  relation  of  this  subject  to  the  problems  we  are 
considering  ma}'  at  first  sight  appear  remote,  yet  we 
shall  see  it  has  very  important  bearings  upon  the 
question  as  to  whether  the  worker  has  forfeited  his 
right  to  a  li\-ing  portion  of  the  common  earth,  or 
whether  he  has  surrendered  his  natural  claim  of 
ownership  over  that  which  his  labor  has  created. 

We  have  seen  how  contract  followed  the  first  stages 
of  advancement  from  the  veriest  savage  state,  where 
the  life  of  the  subjected  family  or  tribe  was  forfeited 
to  the  victor,  in  giving  the  successful  warrior  the 
right  to  the  lifelong  service  of  the  victim  so  spared, 
and  how  such  contract  or  interpretation  of  it  crept 
into  our  civil  code  under  the  equivocal  words  of  our 
national  Constitution  of  "  person  held  to  service  or 
labor,"  and  "claim  of  the  party  to  whom  such  service 
or  labor  may  be  due."  It  is  not  merely  that  con- 
tracts have  their  origin  in  the  way  shown,  but  it  is 
difficult  to  see  how  they  can  exist  in  respect  to  debt 
on  a  more  humane  and  fraternal  method.  For  no 
sooner  are  the  creditor's  rights  acknowledged  in  any 
legal  sense  than  it  Ixicomes  illogical  to  oftVr  any 
modification  or  limit  thereto.  To  give  him  the  right 
to  exact  the  payment  of  tlie  debt  is  not  of  the  least 
consequence,  unless  it  confers  the  power  to  seize  the 

205 


206  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

goods  of  the  debtor.  And  if  the  debtor  has  no  goods, 
or  conceals  thiem,  the  creditor  is  still  powerless  to 
effect  collection,  unless  he  is  also  empowered  to 
exact  the  debtor's  services.  Now,  he  can  only  obtain 
control  of  the  debtor's  services  by  obtaining  posses- 
sion of  his  person.  To  control  the  person,  however, 
involves  donainion  over  such  person's  life.  And  in 
primitive  times  the  debtor,  when  a  husband  and 
father,  involved  also  his  wife,  his  children,  and  his 
slaves,  they  following  him  into  slavery  and  becoming 
subject  to  the  absolute  disposal  of  the  creditor.  The 
laws  of  Moses  had  many  features  which  ameliorated 
this  condition  in  some  important  respects,  as  by  the 
return  of  the  seventh  year  all  debts  were  canceled. 
The  poor  Israelite  could  only  be  sold  to  another 
Israelite  "who  had  substance."  And  he  was  to  be 
treated  as  a  hired,  not  as  a  bond  servant,  and  was  to 
be  set  free  at  the  return  of  the  year  of  jubilee 
(Lev.  XXV.,  37).  But  all  these  constituted  no  adjust- 
ment of  rights  between  the  creditor  and  debtor ;  they 
were  logically  an  invasion  or  annulment  of  the  rights 
of  the  creditor,  which,  if  they  have  any  logical  basis 
whatever,  are  not  to  be  thus  limited  and  set  aside. 

In  Greece  and  in  Rome  the  creditor  had  power 
over  the  person  of  the  debtor.  The  remedy  which 
Solon  applied  to  the  desperate  state  of.  things  he 
found  in  Athens  was  really  the  abolition  of  the 
creditor's  power.  The  struggle  between  the  patri- 
cians and  plebeians  of  Rome  centered  around  the 
attempt  to  limit  the  rights  of  the  creditor.  To  such 
extremes  was  this  right  carried  that  a  creditor  could 
not  only  sell  the  defaulting  debtor  into  slavery,  with 
his  family,  but  the  letter  of  the  law  permitted,  where 


LAW   OF   CONTRACTS.  207 

there  were  several  creditors,  that  the  debtor  shouki 
be  cut  in  pieces  and  shared  between  them.  It  is 
claimed  that  in  this  respect  the  Romans  were  found 
better  than  their  la^-s.  During  the  period  of  feudal- 
ism the  person  was  not  attachable  for  debt,  but  on 
its  decay,  and  on  the  establishment  of  mercantile 
communities  in  Europe,  it  was  revived,  ostensibly  in 
the  interest  of  commerce.  As  late  as  1830  over  seven 
thousand  debtors  had  been  imprisoned  iu  London 
alone  during  a  single  year.  In  this  country  the  abo- 
lition of  imprisonment  for  debt  is  a  late  thing  in 
most  of  the  older  states.  In  most  countries  some  of 
its  features  still  remain.  In  Turkey  the  debtor  is 
the  virtual  slave  of  the  creditor,  and  he  is  held  for  a 
gambling  debt  the  same  as  for  any  other.  This  is 
also  true  in  Mexico  and  in  other  states  on  this  conti- 
nent and  in  Europe.  In  our  own  country,  to  remedy 
the  operation  of  bankrupt  laws  and  exemption  of 
the  person  and  property  from  seizure,  there  are  in 
most  states  certain  lien  laws  which  operate  to 
strengthen  the  power  of  the  creditor  over  the  debtor. 
These  vary  widely  in  different  states,  accordingly  as 
the  tendency  is  to  favor  the  worker  or  the  trader. 
Those  calculated  to  favor  labor  are  generally  decided 
to  be  unconstitutional  by  the  courts,  while  those 
which  favor  the  trader  are  generally  enforced. 

I  quote  from  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Atkinson  before 
the  Senatorial  committee  to  investigate  the  causes  of 
the  exodus  of  labor  from  the  South  a  few  years  ago. 
He  refors  that  movement  to  tlie  oppressions  the 
colored  people  had  experienced  from  the  operation 
of  tlio  "system  of  credits  granted  by  shoplceepers 
uiidf'i-  tlin  li^ii  laws  of  Crcorgia,  S(»utli   Carolina,   and 


'208  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

North  Carolina,"  similar  laws  existing  in  Louisiana 
and  Mississippi  :  "  This  system  of  liens  is  for  the  se- 
curing of  advances  to  the  small  cultivators,  to  enable 
them  to  plant  and  raise  their  crops,  for  which  ad- 
vances very  heavy  rates  of  interest  are  charged,  and 
to  compensate  for  the  risk  thus  taken  by  the  persons 
making  the  advances  very  exorbitant  prices  for  the 
supplies  furnished  are  also  charged.  .  .  .  Advances 
used  to  be  made  by  the  land  owners  to  their  laborers, 
but  are  now  mostly  made  by  what  are  known  as  cross- 
road storekeepers.  I  was  informed  by  persons  who 
seemed  to  have  positive  knowledge  in  the  matter 
that  the  difference  between  the  cash  price  of  the 
goods  and  the  price  at  which  they  were  advanced 
under  the  liens  ranged  from  fifty  to  one  hundred  and 
twenty-five  per  cent.,  and  that  those  who  sold  at  an 
advance  of  from  fifty  to  seventy-five  per  cent,  consid- 
ered themselves  very  honest  dealers,  and  that  they 
were  doing  favors  to  those  with  whom  they  were 
dealing." 

The  consequence  of  such  a  system  of  contracts  so 
enforced  can  be  readily  imagined  ;  constantly  increas- 
ing dependence  and  poverty  on  the  part  of  the  work- 
ers, and  which  can  hardly  benefit  the  land  owners  or 
shopkeepers  themselves.  That  a  few  workers  may, 
by  extraordinary  industry  and  saving,  or  favored  by 
exceptional  circumstances,  even  emerge  from  this 
state  of  helplessness  is  possible  ;  but  any  general  im- 
provement or  amelioration  under  such  conditions  is 
simply  impossible.  If  in  person  they  are  not  liable 
to  seizure,  yet  the  product  of  their  labor  is  subject  to 
a  lien,  first  for  rent,  and  secondly  for  everything  they 
have  used  or  consumed  in  cultivating  "or  managing 


LAW   OF  CONTKACTS.  209 

their  allotment  of  land.  Denied  access  to  the  inherit- 
ance bestowed  on  them  by  nature,  they  have  no  re- 
source but  to  submit  to  the  terms  of  the  land  owner 
in  the  hrst  place,  and  no  means  or  opportunity  to 
provide  themselves  with  tools,  seeds,  manures,  etc.,  ex- 
cept by  mortgaging  the  future  crop.  Under  such 
circumstances  how  can  they  make  a  contract  which 
can  justly  bind  them  or  which  society  can  properly 
enforce  ?  As  they  are  excluded  from  their  rightful 
patrimony,  they  can  make  no  valid  contract  as  to 
their  labors  upon  that  which  is  of  right  their  own  or 
as  to  the  product  such  labors  may  yield. 

The  subject  itself  is  such  as  to  preclude  a  rational 
contract.  That  the  man  works  the  land  precludes 
another's  claim  to  it  by  the  natural  law  of  use ;  for, 
though  it  might  ajDpear  in  certain  cases  that  if  he  did 
not  work  the  land  the  pretended  owner  would  or  might 
do  so,  the  reverse  is  generally  true ;  rented  land  is 
usually  what  the  legal  holder  does  not  and  cannot 
use.  As  the  right  to  use  a  thing  depends  upon  its 
rightful  ownership,  and  the  right  of  ownership  is  de- 
rived from  labor,  a  man  to  obtain  the  benefit  or  use 
of  goods  or  lands  must  use  them  in  person.  This  is 
the  natural  law  of  use.  Only  partners  in  creating 
can  rightly  be  sharers  in  using.  When  the  occupier 
of  a  house  has  paid  in  an}'  form  its  full  cost,  such 
house  in  equity  belongs  to  him,  not  to  the  person 
whom  he  has  paid  for  it ;  and  when  the  cultivator  of 
a  farm  has  paid  the  cost  of  tlie  improvements  U])on 
it,  the  farm  belongs  to  him  and  not  to  the  one  he  has 
paid.* 

*  Tlic  rvjld  of  use  is  an  inscpjinvblo  adjunct  of  the  duty  to  use ;  it  nx- 
islH  in  pcjtency  only  where  Uh;  pomn-  to  use  oxisls,  iis  llic   ri^'lit  to  life 


210  SOCIAL   WEALTH. 

The  same  principle  applies  to  all  forms  of  wealth 
as  well  as  to  the  land  and  its  improvements.  If  one 
does  not  wish  to  use  his  money,  food,  clothing,  or  any 
goods  himself,  he  can  only  exchange  them  for  some- 
thing else,  which  he  does  desire  to  use,  or  thinks  he 
may  desire  more  sometime  in  the  future  than  the  thing 
he  parts  with.  When  the  exchange  takes  place  the  right 
of  use  is  exchanged,  and  of  course  is  canceled  on 
each  side.  To  give  to  one  parity  the  use  of  both  things  is 
no  exchange.  And  to  loan  or  hire  out  such  use  is  a 
fraud  perpetrated  against  nature  and  man.  It  is  an 
attempt  to  exercise  the  right  of  use  without  the  jjer- 
formance  of  the  duty  to  use.  Certainly  society  can- 
not justly  recognize  contracts  which  bind  the  party 
using  anything  to  give  the  benefit  of  such  use  to  him 
who  declines  to  use. 

But  the  denial  of  the  right  to  share  the  benefits  of 
use  to  those  who  do  not  use  does  not  prevent  any 
just  claim  they  may  have  to  the  thing  itself.  That  a 
contract  may  be  binding,  it  is  necessary  not  only 
that  no  deception  be  practiced,  but  that  no  advantage 
be  taken  of  one  of  the  contracting  parties,  in  conse- 
quence of  his  ignorance  of  some  fact  in  the  knowledge 
of  the  other,  which  would  have  prevented  him  from 
entering  into  the  contract,  if  he  had  known  it.  So- 
ciety cannot  in  equity  enforce  any  contract  tinged 
with  fraud,  misrepresentation,  or  where  it  has  been 
entered  into  by  a  party  under  misapprehension  of 


exists  on]y  in  the  living ;  and  all  the  advantages  of  a  given  use  belong 
to  the  DOER  of  it.  A  man  may  take  helps  or  partners  to  perform  a  use, 
but  cannot  farm  out  or  sell  anj^duty  or  use  that  God  made  his.  Neither 
the  moral  law  nor  any  man's  duty  under  it  can  be  changed  by  human 
volitions,  or  agreements,  or  mandates. — L  H.  Hunt. 


LAW   OF   CONTRACTS.  211 

facts  within  tlie  kuowledge  of  the  other,  but  with- 
held. To  make  a  contract  valid,  so  as  to  warrant  the 
interference  of  arbitration  in  its  enforcement,  it  must 
be  entered  into  by  those  competent  to  make  it.  A 
minor  cannot  contract,  even  under  our  laws.  A  per- 
son under  duress  cannot.  A  contract  which  is 
entered  into  to  regain  possession  of  what  is  wrong- 
fully withheld  from  one  cannot  be  enforced  by  the 
one  who  did  the  wrong.  It  has  been  decided  that 
the  partner  cannot  deal  with  a  partner  for  his  share 
of  a  business  without  putting  him  in  possession  of 
all  the  information  which  he  himself  has  with  respect 
to  the  state  of  their  affairs.  Advantage  cannot  be 
taken  of  the  imbecility  of  a  party,  or  of  one  who  has 
been  induced  to  intoxication  to  forward  an  agree- 
ment. 

All  contracts  which  involve  the  alienation  of  a  man's 
natural  rights,  or  those  of  his  children,  are  excluded, 
for  reasons  obvious  to  the  most  stolid.  It  is  no  con- 
tract, and,  as  Ave  have  already  shown,  no  exchange. 
As  to  the  compensation  of  the  laborer,  wages  is  no 
settlement  of  his  claims,  and  there  is  not  one  of  the 
circumstances  present  which  would  justify  society 
in  assuming  that  the  wage-contract,  whatever  it  may 
1)0,  is  a  contract  which  debars  the  laborer  in  the  in- 
dustrial ])artnersliip  from  claiming  his  equitable 
share  in  tlie  joint  ])roduction.  And  in  respect  to 
<hd)t  contracts,  they  are  not  entitled  to  regard  except 
as  matters  of  trust,  as  where  one  confides  the  keep- 
ing of  liis  goods  or  funds  to  anotlier,  or  of  an  incom- 
])leted  excliange,  where  the  transaction  lias  been 
fiilfilli'd  upon  (jne  sido,  l)ut  not  upon  llu!  other.  If 
there  are  risks  run  in  such  attempts  at  exchange,  we 


212  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

may  assume,  in  the  absence  of  any  proof  to  tlie  con- 
trary, that  in  the  transfer  on  the  one  side,  and  prom- 
ised transfer  upon  the  other,  this  risk  has  been 
adjusted  at  the  expense  of  the  party  who  is  respon- 
sible for  it.  But  if  it  involves  a  payment  for  delaying 
transfer  by  the  one  party,  other  than  the  reasonable 
risk,  it  involves  a  principle  of  usurance  for  the  loan 
of  the  money  necessary  to  discharge  the  obligation, 
and  is  no  more  binding  than  any  other  obligation 
given  without  consideration.  For  no  consideration 
can  be  shown,  unless  the  circulating  medium  con- 
sisted of  "  ducats "  ivMch  breed,  or  of  notes  which 
themselves  bear  interest,  as  some  of  our  "  war  meas- 
ure "  money  actually  did.  The  wisdom  of  having 
society  or  government  interfere  in  any  way  with  the 
exchanges  of  individuals  may  well  be  questioned. 
Usually  the  exchanges  are  completed.  It  is  a 
matter  of  choice  with  one  who  has  a  commodity 
to  dispose  of,  whether  he  will  have  cash  or  barter, 
or  whether  he  will  part  with  it  upon  some  one's 
promise  to  pay  him  at  a  certain  time.  If  he  does 
this  voluntarily,  what  has  society  to  do  with  it? 
But  the  man  may  refuse  to  pay  him  when  the  pay- 
ment becomes  due !  True ;  but  this  is  one  of  the 
contingencies  of  the  transaction.  While  laws  for  the 
collection  of  debts  are  in  force,  certainly  he  can  in- 
voke their  aid,  and  plead  with  show  of  justice  that 
the  fact  of  their  existence  on  the  statute  book  was 
one  of  the  encouragements,  if  not  inducements,  to 
give  the  credit.  But  when  that  law  is  repealed,  he 
has  no  such  plea  to  make  and  cannot  justly  throw 
the  burden  of  his  mistake,  in  dealing,  upon  the  pub- 
lic.    But  even  while  such  laws  remain,  it  is  not  nee- 


LAW    OF    CONTEACTS.  213 

essary  that  society  sliould  enforce  the  payment  of 
interest.  To  repeal  all  such  laws  prospectively 
could  do  no  wrong  to  anyone.  There  has  been  a 
long  and  loud  clamor  against  the  "  usury  laws,"  from 
the  days  of  Jeremy  Bentham  to  the  present  time, 
but  without  a  single  intimation  from  any  writer  of 
repute  of  the  logical  complement  to  their  abolition, 
viz.  :  the  withdrawing  of  the  subject  wholly  from  the 
operation  of  law ;  letting  people  make  such  agree- 
ments in  regard  to  it  as  they  please,  and  fulfil  them 
as  they  please,  the  same  as  matters  of  gaming  and 
other  things  outside  of  law.  Society  can  have  no 
interest  in  promoting  the  practice  of  usury  any  more 
than  that  of  gaming.  Its  operation  is  wholly  to  di- 
vert the  social  wealth  and  the  products  of  all  indus- 
try from  the  true  owners  into  the  hands  of  private 
parties,  whose  increase  is  at  the  expense  of  the  gen- 
eral good.  It  may,  nevertheless,  be  a  wise  action  to 
forego  the  legislation  by  which  it  has  tried  so  fruit- 
lessly for  so  many  centuries  to  abate  the  evil,  if,  at 
the  same  time,  it  will  wash  its  hands  of  the  vice  by 
ceasing  to  enforce  it. 

We  can-anticipate,  of  course,  the  interest  its  apolo- 
gists will  express  in  the  poor  land  owner,  who  would 
not  in  that  case  be  able  to  borrow  money  or  obtain 
the  means  to  do  any  business  or  save  himself  from 
want.  I  remember  the  same  cry  when  imprisonment 
for  debt  was  abf)lished.  All  this  is  ver}^  pathetic,  but 
is  only  a  false  scent  thrown  out  to  cover  injustice.  It 
is  paying  interest  and  getting  in  debt  whicli  has  made 
one  liundrcd  ])()()r  for  every  one  it  has  aided  to  im- 
prove liis  condition.  The  credit  which  depends 
upon  the  power  to  coerce  payment  of  interest  upon 


CHAPTER  XIV. 


MONEY   AND   CREDIT. 


The  references  to  these  subjects  are  not  intended 
as  specific  investigations,  but  relative  only  to  the 
more  primal  matters  of  production  and  of  exchange, 
to  the  latter  of  which  they  are  mere  instruments. 

Tha  value  inherent  in  money,  as  where  some  valu- 
able commodity  is  employed  for  a  medium  and  stand- 
ard, is  only  important  as  a  means  of  security  in  incom- 
pleted exchanges  or  to  make  good  a  balance  remaining 
due  to  one  party  to  a  transaction.  Otherwise,  anything 
whatever  may  be  used  as  a  tally,  like  notches  cut  in 
a  stick,  or  pebbles  thrown  in  a  pile,  or  figures  placed 
in  a  book,  as  agreed  upon  between  the  parties.  A 
current  tally  must,  of  course,  have  behind  it  a  gen- 
eral or  "  common  consent,"  or  it  would  fail  to  be  cur- 
rent. To  such  public  tally  or  currency  there  will  be 
necessarily  attached,  if  not  inherent,  a  guaranteed 
value  equal,  or  assumed  to  be  mutually  equal,  to  the 
things  exchanged,  as  two  values  are  proved  to  be 
equal  to  each  other  by  demonstrating  their  mutual 
equality  to  a  third.  If,  however,  the  exchange  is  a  com- 
plete one,  it  will  make  no  difference  how  valuable  or 
how  worthless  the  currency  may  be  in  which  it  is 
merely  calculated,  A  man  selling  a  horse  for  one 
hundred  dollars  and  taking  two  colts  at  fifty  dollars 
each  in  payment,  has  no  concern  as  to  the  money  it 


216 


MONEY   AND   CREDIT.  217 

is  calculated  in.  An  exchange,  in  fact,  is  never  com- 
Dleted  until  the  commodities  exchanged  are  received 

1  O 

on  both  sides.  When  a  man  parts  with  his  services 
or  the  commodity  in  which  his  service  are  enfolded 
for  a  certain  amount  of  currency,  he  does  not  part 
with  them  for  the  currency  in  itself,  but  for  other 
commodities  which  he  needs  to  support  life  or  pro- 
mote his  enjoyment  which  that  amount  of  currency 
is  supposed  to  command  when  and  as  he  may  desire 
them.  And  the  same  is  true  whether  the  currency 
has  intrinsic  value,  as  in  gold  and  silver,  or  merely 
guaranteed  value,  as  in  promises  to  pay.  It  is  now 
seen  why  a  stable  value  in  the  currency  is  requisite 
to  anything  like  an  equitable  system  of  exchange 
where  delay  occurs  in  the  completion.  During  the 
civil  war  the  greenback,  the  currency  supplied  to 
the  people,  was  subject  to  daily  and  hourly  fluctua- 
tions, sometimes  reaching  as  high  as  twenty-five  per 
cent,  in  a  single  day,  and  varying  altogether  from  par 
to  one  hundred  and  eighty  per  cent,  discount  meas- 
ured by  gold,  which  itself  was  at  one  time  at  four  or 
five  per  cent,  discount  in  silver,  which  again,  in  its 
ability  to  purchase  labor  or  stable  goods,  was  also 
subject  to  a  wide  fluctuation. 

Of  course,  exchanges  were  altogether  a  matter  of 
liazard  under  this  state  of  the  currency,  and  the  most 
careful  dealer  could  not  tell  when  he  was  selling  a 
thing  at  a  supposed  advance  whetlior  next  day  he 
would  be  able  to  replace  it  for  the  money  he  had  re- 
ceived, and  was  only  assured  of  his  gain  c^r  loss  after 
he  had  repurchased. 

The  man  who  has  stored  a  few  silver  or  paper  dol- 
lars depends  upon  the  "  common    consi^it "   of   all 


218  SOCIAL    WEAIiTH. 

with  whom  he  anticipates  dealing  to  receive  them, 
whether  paper  or  coin,  at  same  value  as  he  received 
them,  and  when  this  is  assured  to  him  it  is  a  matter 
of  indifference  whether  the  dollars  have  actual  value 
or  only  its  guaranty.     In  either  case  he  can  put  the 
currency  to  no  use,  unless,  indeed,  he  wishes  to  put 
the  silver  to  some  industrial  purpose,  when  he  would 
really  buy  of  himself  the  bullion  contained  in  the 
dollars.     The  greenbacks  would  serve  no  purpose  for 
food,  or  clothing,  or  shelter,  unless  turned  into  beef, 
bread,  etc.,  furnished  by  actual  labor.     So  that  no  ex- 
change is  complete  until  both  sides  to  the  transac- 
tion are  "  satisfied."     "  Money  itself  is  only  a  higher 
order  of  bill,  and  though  giving  money  is  payment,  it 
is  not  satisfaction  until  the  money  is  exchanged  away 
for  something  that  is  desired.     Thus,  though  a  shoe- 
maker is  paid  when  he  gets  money  for  his  shoes,  yet 
he  has  not  got  a  satisfaction  until  he  has  got  bread, 
or  meat,  or  wine,  or  anything  else  he  desires  in  ex- 
change for  the  money.     We  have  seen  that  the  early 
economists  expressly  pointed  out  that  money  is  only 
an  intermediary  in  exchanges  :  it  is  only  a  general 
bill  of  exchange,  or  right,  or  title,  to  be  paid  in  some- 
thing else.     They  only  considered   the  exchange  as 
consomme  or  completed,  when  products  had  been  ex- 
changed against  products  "   (Macleod,  E.  E.,  p.  219.) 
The  great  danger  from  a  fluctuating  or  unsound 
currency  consists  in  the  character  of  the  credits  it 
engenders,  and  the  facility  it  gives  to  obtain  posses- 
sion of  things  which  have  not  been  earned.     Indeed, 
a  credit  money,  when  not,  as  in  the  case  of  govern- 
ment notes,  di  forced  loan,  cannot  be  put  into  circula- 
tion without  placing  so  much  property  or  goods  as 


MONEY   AND    CREDIT.  219 

they  represent  or  command  into  hands  otlior  tbau 
the  owners  or  producers  thereof.  The  problem  seems, 
then,  to  discover  some  method  of  measuring  and  com- 
pensating the  transfer  of  goods  so  as  to  make  each 
party  thereto  secure  in  obtaining  an  equivalent  for 
that  which  he  parts  with.  When  a  promissory  note  is 
given  in  exchange,  whether  of  the  other  party  of  a' 
corporation  or  of  government  matters  not,  its  vcdtte 
coiisisfs  ivhoUy  in  the  probability  that  it  tuill  be  redeemed 
at  maturity,  or,  if  on  demand,  at  presentation.  For 
upon  the  question  of  its  redemption  depends  alto- 
gether whether  the  owner  will  have  sold  or  given 
away  his  goods. 

But  even  assuming  that  the  note  is  certain  of  re- 
demption, or,  at  least,  of  enabling  the  holder  to  ob- 
tain that  for  which  he  really  sells  the  goods,  there  is 
still  the  element  of  debt  in  it.  The  issuer,  banker,  or 
government  has  consequently  obtained  so  much  val- 
ue for  which  no  satisfaction  has  been  given,  nor  does 
there  appear  an}-  means  other  than  this  by  which  a 
money  can  be  put  in  circulation,  except  it  be  a  com- 
modity money,  or  a  money  issued  upon  a  deposit  of 
commodities,  as  a  gold  or  silver  certificate,  or  a  cer- 
tificate of  some  responsible  custodian  that  commodi- 
ties, or  goods,  or  services  are  held  subject  to  order. 
In  that  case,  there  would  not  be  a  credit  but  an  actual 
exchange,  the  purchaser  receiving  his  goods  and  the 
seller  the  order  for  his,  or  for  their  value,  to  be  had 
at  liis  pleasure.  Such  certificates  could  effect  ex- 
cliangos  with  security  and  facility,  if  some  means  of 
divisibility  were  discovered  so  that  larger  6r  smaller 
l^nrchasos  could  be  made  with  it. 

This  description  of  mon(!y  would  not  constitute 


220  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

credit  in  the  purchase.  To  make  a  pure  credit  it  is 
necessary  that  one  shall  be  able  to  buy  commodities  or  ob- 
tain money  ivithout  exchanging  anything  for  them.  A 
lien  upon  the  goods  themselves  would  j)revent  their 
use  or  disposal,  and  so  constitute  no  proper  transfer. 
A  pledge  of  other  commodities  or  mortgage  might  be 
given,  but  then  their  disposal  would  not  be  allowed, 
and  would  be  equivalent  to  a  mortgage  or  lien  upon 
the  purchase  itself. 

Therefore,  credit  money,  or  an  actually  pure  credit 
of  an}-  kind,  is  possible  only  where  one  party  pur- 
chases something  from  another,  to  pay  for  ivhich  he  has 
Tiothing  but  the  thing  p)urchased.  I  am  not  speaking  of 
transactions  between  parties  well  known  to  each 
other,  in  which  one  may  not  have,  at  the  moment, 
available  currency  to  meet  the  balance  of  an  ex- 
change. Selling  goods  on  short  time  without  inter- 
est, or  keeping  running  accounts  with  periodical  set- 
tlements, is  usual  in  all  lines  of  trade,  and,  though 
attended  with  some  risk,  is  followed  from  its  greater 
convenience  as  compared  with  cash  settlements  in  each 
separate  transaction.  It  is  not  at  all  from  such  trans- 
actions that  interest  on  debt  arises,  but  from  the  bor- 
rowing of  means  to  do  business  with,  or  to  antici- 
pate one's  earnings,  or  to  live  in  advance  of  one's 
income.  The  other  form  of  dealing,  popularly  called 
credit,  equally  desired  by  purchaser  and  dealer, 
doubtless  facilitates  exchanges  and  indirectly  has- 
tens production.  But  it  is  not  because  credit  is  pro- 
ductive, but  because  the  confidence  and  mutual  trust 
these  parties  ^^ut  in  each  other  enable  them  more 
readily  to  adjust  supply  to  demand.  To  say  that 
credit,  per  se,  is  a  productive  force,  is  to  assume  that 


MONEY  AND   CREDIT.  221 

it  creates  something  from  nothing ;  since  the  borrow- 
ing of  a  horse  or  a  plow  does  not  make  any  more 
horses  or  plows  than  there  were  before.  And  when 
I  have  borrowed  a  hundred  dollars  of  a  friend,  it  by 
no  means  adds  a  hundred  or  a  single  dollar  to  the 
general  amount  of  circulation.  Borrowing  money  or 
anything  else,  in  its  exact  sense,  can  only  be  justified 
in  great  necessity  ;  and  lending  is  then  enjoined  as  a 
moral,  not  as  an  economical,  action,  usury  for  which  is 
clearly  a  moral  wrong.  Of  such  necessity,  too,  the 
lender  must  be  the  judge.  For  of  the  numerous  small 
or  large  sums  one  lends  during  his  lifetime,  seldom 
one  turns  out  to  be  more  than  a  temporary-  relief  to 
the  borrower,  even  when  never  called  upon  to  repay ; 
and  often  proves  an  injury  by  encouraging  mendi- 
cancy. A  friend  of  mine  who  had  many  years  ago  re- 
tired from  active  business  with  a  small  fortune,  mostly 
ready  money,  told  me  that  he  was  adopting  my  ideas 
about  interest  and  thought  that  he  was  really  doing 
much  good  by  loaning  to  poorer  people  his  money  at 
a  lower  than  the  legal  rate  of  interest.  The  last  time 
I  saw  him,  however,  on  inquiry  as  to  his  experience, 
he  said  he  could  not  point  to  one  whom  his  loans  had 
permanently  benefited  ;  that  most  of  those  who  had 
given  mortgages  on  their  homes  had  failed  to  keep 
up  the  payment  of  the  interest,  and  that  he  had 
made  up  his  mind  that,  however  advantageous  credit 
might  be  for  the  unscrupulous  who  hold  good  se- 
curity, it  was  bad  for  everybody  else,  borrower  and 
lender  alike. 

It  is  this  intimate  connection  between  money  and 
credit,  indeed,  tlioir  identity,  which  makes  all  legis- 
lation iu  regard  to  it  a  donbtfnl  and  uncertain  ele- 


222  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

ment.     The  whole  subject  of  legal  tender  turns  upon 
the  hiws  for  the  collection  of  debts.     Without  their 
existence  no  legal  tender,  but  only  a  general  tender, 
would  be  required  ;   because  all  our  experience  in 
currenc)^  shows  that  a  bank  note  or  a  treasury  note, 
other  than  legal  tender,  will  affect  exchanges  just  as 
well  as  gold  and  silver.     Indeed,  the  first  issue  of 
treasury  notes  in  the  late  war  continued  at  par,  while 
the  legal  tender  greenback  declined  to  less  than  one- 
half  because  the  government  refused  to  take  it  for 
duties  on  imports,  or  to  pay  Shylock  in  what  an- 
swered well   enough   for   soldiers,  and,   indeed,  for 
every  branch  of  industry  and  healthful  business.  The 
history  of  that  time  shows  how  readily  business  and 
industry  accommodate  themselves  to  circumstances, 
and  how  little  honest  work  need  depend  upon  the 
fostering  care  of  the  government.     When  the  govern- 
ment became  embarrassed  by  the  needs  of  a  gigantic 
war  and  entered  on  a  career  of  enormous  credits,  gold 
and  silver,  and  even  nickel  and  copper  currency,  took 
themselves  out  of  the  factory  and  warehouse.     The 
state  banks  furnished  dollars  (paper),  but  no  change. 
Immediately  the  postage  stamps  fell  into  its  place  by 
general  consent,  mucilage  and  all,  although  the}'  had 
no  legal  power  to  pay  debts.     The  government,  tak- 
ing the  hint  from  this  circumstance,  gave  out  the 
postal  currency,  which  served  an  admirable  purpose 
till  the  change  crept  out  of  its  hiding-places,  some 
years  after  the  war  had  closed. 

In  reviewing  that  period  we  see  how  it  was  prin- 
cipally the  matter  of  credit  that  was  affected  by  those 
changes  in  the  currency  and  its  values.  To  persons 
who  exchanged  substantial  values  on  a  certain  day 


MONEY  AND   CREDIT.  223 

it  did  not  matter  whetlier  the  dollar  was  twent3'-five, 
fifty,  or  one  linndred.  The  ratio  between  their  two 
commodities  remained  the  same.  Differences  only 
arose  where  commodities  were  in  process  of  exchange 
or  in  transitu.  It  was,  however,  where  debts  were  due 
that  the  great  disparities  were  seen.  Immense 
amounts  of  mortgaged  property  were  redeemed  at 
fifty  per  cent,  and  even  less,  by  taking  advanrage  of 
the  legal  tender  paper.  In  1864  I  sold,  for  a  friend 
residing  abroad,  gold  at  2.60,  and  paid  off  a  mortgage 
which  had  been  given  just  before  the  war  when  gold 
was  exchangeable  at  par. 

But  money  borrowed  during  the  war  w^as  subjected 
to  the  reverse  action  as  the  premium  on  gold  receded. 
Other  commodities,  of  course,  receded  with  gold  so 
that  the  borrower  had,  by  so  much,  less  to  pay  with. 
That  is,  he  had  to  pay  his  debt,  which  was  contracted 
in  dollars  at  seventy-five  or  fifty,  in  dollars  at  one 
hundred.*  Doubtless  this  contributed  largely  to 
precipitate  the  panic  of  1873  ;  but  in  reality  the  same 
or  a  similar  thing  takes  place,  independent  of  any 
change  of  the  currency,  whenever  credits  are  extended 
and  then  shortened.  The  impulse  which  credits  give 
to  production,  and  which  at  first  yields  profits,  ap- 
pearing to  justify  the  claim  that  credit  adds  to  pro- 
duction, really  reduces  by  so  much  the  ratio  of  that 
production  in  the  long  run,  as  an  abundant  crop  re- 
duces the  price  of  grain.  But  b}-  the  time  payments 
are  required  and  credits  drawn  in  the  prices  of  goods 

*  Tlie  idea  of  "  honest  money  "  as  licld  by  llic  capitalistic  mind,  is 
the  sainc  as  that  wiiicli  would  bo  orilertaiiicd  by  a  merchant  as  to  iho 
"  lioiiost  balance,"  with  a  movable  lulcrum  he  shifted  at  will,  as  he 
bouglit  or  sold  in  the  same  suilcs. 


224  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

are  so  reduced  that,  in  addition  to  being  minus  the 
interest  paid,  which  equals  the  principle  in  every  ten 
or  twelve  years,  the  borrower  has  to  pay  his  debt  in 
money  worth  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  to  one 
hundred  and  fifty  in  its  ratio  to  the  commodities  he 
manufactures  or  deals  in.* 

The  view  taken  of  credit  and  interest,  or  usury,  is 
often  confined  to  the  lender  and  borrower  ;  especially 
as  to  the  moral  aspect  of  the  question.  We  can  con- 
ceive of  circumstances  where  neither  would  be  ad- 
vantaged or  wronged  by  it.  A  man  himself  paying 
interest  or  rent  and  having  values  due  him,  or  lend- 
ing means  to  an  importunate  friend  or  neighbor, 
would  not  be  benefited  ;  because  by  paying  so  much 
upon  his  own  indebtedness  he  could  save  the  pay- 
ment by  himself  of  so  much  interest.  The  friend, 
moreover,  may,  by  the  aid  of  the  money  borrowed, 
buy  a  house  or  pay  off  a  mortgage  and  thereby  save 
in  rent  or  interest  what  he  pays  as  interest  to  the 
lender.     So  that  as  heiioeen  these  two  there  may  be 


*  This  principle  is  well  illustrated  in  the  speculative  farming  which 
has  been  carried  on  for  several  3-ears  in  the  West.  So  flattering  liad  it 
become,  that  many  went  into  it  with  borrowed  capital.  This  enabled 
the  special  production  to  wJiich  it  was  directed  to  be  largely  increased, 
resulting  in  a  great  decline  in  the  price  of  wheat,  and  in  the  ruin  of 
many  of  the  wheat-growers  who  had  believed  that  credit  was  produc- 
tive. Such  diversion  of  goods  to  speculative  production  through  credit 
doubly  affects  exchange :  reducing  the  price  of  the  product  by  increas- 
ing its  supply,  while  reducing  the  demand  by  withdrawing  labor  from 
or  ceasing  to  employ  it  in  other  industries  which  produce  the  things  for 
which  it  may  be  exchanged.  The  past  year  has  been  one  of  great  dis- 
aster to  such  production  and  a  bounteous  harvest  for  the  Shylocks, 
while  the  small  farmer,  who  resisted  the  temptation  to  use  credit,  is 
comparatively  prosperous. 


MONEY  AND   CREDIT.  225 

notliing  -svbicli  is  morally  wrong  or  economically  un- 
justifiable, because  tlie  interest  paid  and  received  by 
each  may  balance  each  other. 

But  it  is  as  a  social  question  that  its  true  nature 
apiDears  ;  because  this  payment  of  interest,  how  far 
soever  it  may  be  shifted,  and  all  the  more  certainly 
because  it  can  be  so  shifted,  falls  at  last  upon  the 
labor  which  produces  the  social  wealth.  And  it  is 
because  credit  no  more  than  other  forms  of  capital, 
excepting  land  and  labor,  can  produce  anything,  that 
usance  paid  for  it  is  immoral  and  unjustifiable. 
Credit  under  these  circumstance  becomes  pernicious, 
because  it  not  only  helps  to  keep  up  the  interest 
fraud,  but  becomes  itself  a  means  of  doubling  and 
trebling  the  amounts  abstracted  from  the  labor  and 
the  land  by  this  subtle  and  widely  difi'used  system 
of  robbery. 

A  man  of  large  means  and  financial  probity  can  let 
out  all  his  money  on  well  secured  property  and  yet  have 
credit  for  large  amounts.  This  credit,  as  shown  by  the 
economists,  is  as  really  capital  as  his  gold  and  sibrer, 
By  establishing  a  bank  and  issuing  notes  without  in- 
terest, as  the  banks  are  authorized  to  do,  he  can  let 
them  out  to  business  men  on  good  security,  and  so 
derive  an  income  from  what  he  owes.  The  national 
banks  are  contrived  for  precisely  this  business.  By 
lending  a  hundred  thousand  to  the  government, 
ninety  thousand  is  returned  to  them  to  let  to  tlie  peo- 
ple, who  are  also  paying  to  the  banker  his  interest 
on  the  whole  hundred,  and  not  unfrequently  on  their 
own  deposits  also.  But  it  is  not  necessary  to  particu- 
larize persons  or  classes.  The  evil  lies  in  the  vice  of 
seeking  control  of  that  which  wo  have  not  earned, 


226  SOCIAL   WEALTH. 

whether  on  the  part  of  debtor  or  creditor.  The  evil 
of  credit  is  of  wdde  social  effect,  and  permeates  all 
fields  of  industry  and  commerce. 

Did  any  way  appear  to  retain  credit  and  abolish 
interest,  it  might  be  unnecessary  to  antagonize  credit. 
But  until  an  available  way  to  accomplish  this  is 
shown,  it  must  continue,  as  now,  to  be  the  basis  on 
which  usury  rests,  and  is  really  equivalent  to  a  mo- 
nopolized control  of  the  land,  since  the  law  cannot 
interfere  to  enforce  the  credit  contract  without  in- 
volving the  right  to  control  the  person  and  service  of 
the  man  and  the  result  of  his  labor  upon  the  soil. 
The  intimate  relations  of  these  questions  were  recog- 
nized as  early  as  the  time  of  Solon.  To  repeal  all 
laws  for  the  collection  of  debts  would  effectually  dis- 
pose of  the  credit  question,  I  think,  without  doing 
the  least  injury  to  industrial  production  or  making  it 
any  the  more  difficult  for  the  poor  to  employ  them- 
selves or  to  conserve  the  results  of  their  toil.  The 
only  parties  it  would  unfavorably  affect  would  be  the 
irresponsible  business  adventurer,  or  the  would-be 
spendthrift.  Usurers  and  stock  gamblers  would  have 
more  difficulty  in  finding  victims  to  fleece,  and  be 
wholly  unable  to  lay  industry  under  tribute,  as  now. 

But  it  is  a  long  time  before  our  people,  through 
legislation,  are  likely  to  do  anything  so  sensible  as 
this,  and  it  is  even  too  much  to  expect  that  they  will 
repeal  so  much  of  the  laws  as  now  enforce  tlie  collec- 
tion of  interest  or  of  any  debt,  the  principal  of  which 
has  already  been  paid  by  instalments  as  interest. 

The  money  of  commerce  would  be  such  as  growth, 
experience,  and  general  consent  made  it,  if  govern- 
ments would  take  tlieir  hands  off',  since  commerce,  if 


MONEY  AND   CEEDIT.  227 

left  to  itself,  would  soon  provide  its  "instruments 
of  exchange."  Government  should  at  least  cease  to 
do  what  it  has  for  the  last  quarter  of  a  century,  and 
indeed,  through  its  whole  history,  been  doing,  play 
into  the  hands  of  the  spoilers,  and  make  the  currency 
a  football  for  the  stock  gamblers  and  usurers.  The 
form  which  money  will  ultimately  assume  will  doubt- 
less be  a  currency  based  upon  labor,  so  as  to  make 
the  labor  of  any  member  of  society,  however  humble, 
a  general  tender  for  all  such  desirable  and  useful 
goods  as  are  in  supply ;  but  at  that  time  commerce 
will  have  ceased  to  be  the  agent  of  the  pirate  and  the 
freebooter,  of  a  privileged  or  idle  class,  and  become, 
what  it  is  capable  of  becoming,  the  hand-maiden  of 
social  industry  and  universal  reciprocation. 


CHAPTEE  XV. 

OP  VALUES   OE  ECONOMIC   RATIOS. 

According  to  the  later  school  of  economists,  "  Val- 
ue is  a  desire  of  the  mind,"  and  signifies  the  estima- 
tion in  which  a  thing  is  held.  But  it  is  evident  that 
in  order  to  give  this  desire  any  logical  expression,  the 
thing  must  be  compared  or  measured  by  something 
which  is  external  and  objective.  To  say  that  a  man  de- 
sires, esteems,  or  values  a  horse  has  no  meaning 
until  a  comparison  is  made  with  something  which  lie 
is  willing  to  give  for  it.  And  whatever  the  thing  or 
amount  of  money,  or  commodities,  he  is  willing  to 
part  with  to  obtain  it,  turns  at  last  upon  how  much 
labor  or  life-force  he  is  willing  to  bestow  on  the  pos- 
sessor of  the  horse  in  order  to  make  it  his  own.  It 
is  this  consideration  which  moderates  the  blind  de- 
sire and  reduces  it  to  some  regular  form  where  it 
can  be  recognized  as  a  force  in  social  affairs.  It  is 
subject  also  to  another  regulating  principle  which 
modifies  and  limits  it.  A  madman  may  desire  a 
means  to  destroy  another's  life  or  his  own.  An  ine- 
briate may  desire  liquor  though  its  use  brings  delirium 
tremens.  But  these  desires,  and  all  others  which  seek 
unnatural  and  illicit  gratification,  cannot  enter  into 
any  economy  of  social  life  or  jiistify  any  social  trans- 
action. It  is  inconceivable  how  anyone  can  desire  or 
value  that  which  is  not  productive  of  some  useful 


228 


OF  VALUES  OR  ECONOMIC  RATIOS.        229 

results,  either  to  self  or  to  others.  That  some  child- 
ish whim  or  habit  may  make  things  desirable  to  the 
uninformed  or  diseased  mind,  which  injure  the  in- 
dividual or  society,  cannot  change  the  general  fact 
that  wiiy  things  are  desired  or  valued  is  because  of  their 
ahility  to  sustain  and  prolong  human  life  and  increase  hit- 
man happiness.  That  the  individual  may  think  some 
possession  desirable  to  him  which  will  wrong  or  in- 
jure another  will  not  prevent  society  from  acting 
upon  its  sense  of  the  "  greatest  good."  If  these  esti- 
mations conflict  or  disagree,  it  becomes  the  business 
of  science  to  reconcile  such  contentions.  The  prin- 
ciple of  utility  enunciated  by  Jeremy  Bentham,  and 
supported  by  Mill,  Spencer,  and  other  noteworthy 
authors  of  ancient  and  modern  time,  as  the  great 
moral  motive  governing  mankind,  is  certainly  the 
force  controlling  all  intelligent  social  and  economic 
interchange,  whatever  its  exact  place  in  morals.  The 
ignorant  and  imbecile,  controlled  by  blind  prejudice 
or  feeling,  may  fail  to  act  from  it ;  but  this  does  not 
discredit  the  principle,  for,  even  in  these  cases,  the 
estimate  is  based  upon  what  they  imagine  or  believe 
will  be  most  useful  or  serviceable  to  themselves. 
So  that  if  value  is  merely  a  desire,  it  is,  at  least,  a 
desire  for  some  real  or  imaginary  good  to  self  ov  io 
others.  By  the  definitions  of  economists,  therefore, 
value  is  dependent  on  utility  and  service. 

"  You  see  that  utility,  under  whatever  form  it  pre- 
sents itself,  is  the  source  of  the  value  of  things  "  (J. 
B.  Say). 

"  There  are  three  orders  of  quantities,  and  o\\\y 
three,  which    satisfy    the    definition    of  wealth,   and 


230  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

these  may  be  symbolized  by  the  terms — Money,  La- 
bor, and  Credit "  (H.  D.  Macleod). 

But  since  money  is  but  a  "  work  tally,"  and  since 
credit  is  but  a  promise  to  render  service  or  some  de- 
sirable thing  in  which  services  of  utility  are  incorpo- 
rated, or,  at  most,  a  right  to  demand  them,  value  is 
necessarily  derived  from  its  source,  the  utility  of 
things,  through  labor.  Really,  then,  the  only  means 
of  giving  value  to  anything,  or  of  rendering  available 
the  utilities  in  natural  things,  is  by  useful  service. 
The  term  value  is,  however,  too  equivocal  to  be  safely 
employed  without  specific  definition  In  trade,  to 
which  economists  now  wholly  confine  economic  in- 
vestigation, the  word  is  more  often  employed  to  mean 
the  exactly  opposite  thing  to  that  which  they  insist 
is  its  meaning,  as,  "  I  am  paying  you  more  than  the 
value  of  these  goods,"  or,  "  I  am  selling  them  to  you 
far  below  their  value."  It  is  said  that  "commercial 
bargains  are  the  delight  of  the  Greeks,  and  they  often 
manage  to  part  with  their  wares  to  the  Turks  for 
tivice  their  value." 

The  only  proper  thing  seems  to  be,  then,  to  dis- 
tinguish Value  in  Use,  Value  in  Service,  and  Value 
in  Exchange. 

Value  in  Utility  is  an  invariable  proportion. 

Value  in  Service  is  a  stable  proportion. 

Value  in  Exchange  is  a  variable  proportion. 

Preferably  to  value,  however,  I  use  the  term  ratio. 
The  ratio  of  utility  is  the  proportion  which  one  thing 
bears  to  another  in  its  ability  to  yield  sustenance  to 
human  life  or  to  supply  its  varied  needs  and  desires. 
This  ratio  is  unvarying.  A  hundredweight  of  the 
same  quality  of  wheat  will  at  all  times  and  places, 


OF  VALUES   OK  ECONOMIC    EATIOS.  231 

other  things  being  equal,  sustain  animal  life  to  the 
same  extent,  whether  it  cost  ten  dollars,  or  is  so 
plenty  as  to  be  had  for  gathering,  or  so  cheap  as  to 
be  used  for  fuel,  as  corn  sometimes  is  in  our  grain - 
growing  states.  The  ton  of  coal,  of  same  qualit}-, 
will  give  out  the  same  proportion  of  heat,  make  the 
same  amount  of  steam,  and  raise  the  same  number  of 
foot  pounds,  whether  it  cost  five  dollars  or  nothing 
but  the  labor  of  picking  up  from  the  ground,  and 
maintains  a  constant  ratio  in  that  respect  with  wood, 
coals  of  a  different  character  and  grade,  peat,  oils, 
and  all  other  substances  used  for  fueh  A  pound  of 
wool  will  yield  the  same  amount  of  yarn  or  cloth, 
whether  it  cost  a  dollar  or  a  dime,  and  holds  a  fixed 
relation,  as  to  use,  with  cotton,  flax,  silk  and  other 
fibers  suitable  to  be  turned  into  fabrics. 

Upon  this  ratio  of  use  everything  ivhich  can  claim  to  be 
exact  in  economics  depends.  But  in  the  differing  judg- 
ments of  men  a  difference  of  estimation  occurs,  as 
people  will  disagree  as  to  whether  it  is  hot  or  cold  in 
absence  of  a  physical  thermometric  standard. 

But  this  ratio,  although  it  may  not  be  clearly  ap- 
prehended by  the  many,  is,  nevertheless,  an  invari- 
able proportion,  capable  of  being  ascertained  with  ex- 
actness in  every  industrial  or  economic  relation. 
And  no  commerce  or  industry  can  long  endure  which 
ignores  it.  The  ignorance,  deceptive  teaching,  or 
trickery  which  at  present  renders  it  obscure  in  busi- 
ness operations  no  more  brings  it  into  doubt  tlian 
does  the  maljility  of  a  child  to  compute  the  product 
of  a  certain  number  of  pounds  at  a  certain  rate,  in 
C()use(iueuce  of  wljich  ho  gets  cheated  by  the  dis- 
Louest  merchant,  thrc^w  d()iil)t  upon  ilic  tiiitli  of  Mio 


232  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

multiplication   table  or  upon  the  exactness  of  the 
pound  as  a  unit  of  weight. 

The  Eatio  of  Service  is  a  stable  ratio,  and  relates, 
first,  to  the  human  energy  exerted ;  second,  to  the 
time  through  which  it  is  exerted,  and  third,  to  the 
utility  of  the  resulting  product. 

Of  these  three  elements,  utility  is  a  certain  and 
unvarying  proportion.  Time  also  is  capable  of  mathe- 
matical measurement.  And  the  energy  is  also  ascer- 
tainable with  sufficient  practical  accuracy.  A  day's 
or  an  hours  ivorh,  as  to  what  should  be  its  product, 
is  quite  generally  well  known  in  every  trade,  profes- 
sion, and  calling.  It  is  hence  apparent  that  the  vast 
inequality  found  to  exist  in  society,  in  relation  to 
compensation  of  service,  must  be  attributed  to  causes 
wholly  outside  of  any  natural  law  of  exchange.  For 
the  tendency  to  equal  compensation  for  services  of 
equal  utility  is  as  inevitable  as  the  finding  of  its  level 
by  the  water  of  the  ocean. 

The  utility  of  a  service  naturally  determines  the 
ratio  of  its  compensation.  For  however  hard  a  man 
may  labor,  if  he  produces  no  useful  result,  the  labor 
to  him  is  void.  And  by  no  equity  can  he  exchange  the 
results  of  such  negative  service  with  the  more  useful 
result  of  another's  toil.  He  will  only  be  able  to  do 
this  by  taking  advantage  of  the  childish  estimation 
of  others  or  of  crude  social  and  civil  institutions. 
The  services  which  the  speculator,  usurer,  slave- 
holder, landlord,  the  gambler,  burglar,  or  highwayman 
perform,  are  not  compensated  by  any  economic  law, 
but  by  the  law  of  cunning,  fraud,  and  usurpation ;  for 
wherein  the  services  are  without  use,  they  can  only 


OF  VALUES   OR  ECONOMIC    RATIOS.  233 

command  pay  by  tlie  exercise  of  brute  force  or  by  the 
aid  of  state  power  and  barbaric  custom. 

By  equal  compensation  we  are  not  to  understand, 
necessaril}',  an  equal  sum  of  money  for  an  equal 
number  of  day's  work ;  for  not  only  will  some  day's 
work  effect  greater  utility  than  others,  but  some  em- 
ployments are  much  more  exhaustive  or  involve 
greater  hazard  to  life  and  health  than  others.  It  may 
serve  to  silence  the  objector  to  the  equitable  view  to 
remark,  however,  that,  even  should  society,  by  some 
arrangement,  or  by  any  movement  to  "  establish  jus- 
tice," arbitrarily^  make  all  compensations  equal,  the 
employments  which  require  culture  aud  talent  would 
still  be  sought  by  those  best  fitted  to  them.  The  artist 
would  paint  pictures,  model  clay,  or  chisel  marble  in 
preference  to  digging  ditches  or  breaking  stone,  al- 
though the  compensation  were  no  more  for  the  one 
than  for  the  other.  The  clergyman  would  preach  in 
preference  to  holding  a  plow  ;  the  lawyer  would 
plead  and  counsel  clients  in  preference  to  sawing 
wood ;  the  merchant  would  serve  customers  in  pref- 
erence to  grooming  animals,  and  the  prima  donna  would 
sing  at  the  opera  in  preference  to  croning  in  the  nur- 
sery or  even  to  acting  the  "  walking  lady  "  before  the 
scenes.  Exceptions  to  this  rule  would  merely  show 
that  some  had  adopted  an  employment  not  siiited  to 
their  tastes  and  qualifications,  because  forced  by  cir- 
cumstances or  allured  by  cupidity. 

To  throw  discredit  upon  the  ])roposition  of  Adam 
Smith  that  hilK)r  is  the  creator  of  value,  the  later 
economists,  after  having  defined  value  to  be  merely 
the  amount  of  irioney  a  thing  will  sell  for  iit  a  given 
place    and    time,    attomj)t    to    show    thai    tlie    sanu) 


234  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

amounts  of  labor  produce  values  most  unequal ;  tliat, 
indeed,  the  great  values,  as  of  land,  stocks,  and  other 
speculative  capitals,  are  not  produced  or  based  upon 
any  labor  whatever.  Yet  even  these  are  determined 
and  upheld  by  the  amount  of  interest,  rent,  or  profit 
they  exploit  from  labor.  Eight  to  place  and  oppor- 
tunity are  in  their  nature  indefeasible,  and  the  laws 
or  customs  which  sanction  traffic  in  them  are  the  out- 
growths of  forceful  or  fraudulent  usurpation.  The 
income  such  perversion  enables  the  land  or  money- 
lord  to  exact  is  derived  wholly  from  the  uncompensated 
labor,  or  is  a  draft  upon  the  fertility  of  the  soil.  In 
order  that  a  person  may  procure  and  enjoy  the  uses 
existing  in  natural  substances  or  forces,  it  is  neces- 
sary that  he  put  forth  the  requisite  exertion,  or  makes 
the  effort  or  sacrifice  necessary  to  obtain  them.  The 
proportion  thus  realized  may  be  said  to  be  the 

RATIO   OP   SERVICE   AND   COMPENSATION. 

The  ratio  of  service  is  the  proportion  of  utility  a 
service  secures.  The  ratio  of  compensation  is  the 
proportion  of  such  use  enjoyed  by  the  doer  of  the 
service,  whether  acted  upon  in  the  social  life  and 
system  of  exchanges  or  subverted  at  the  will  of  a  des- 
potic individual  or  class  control.  And  this  seems 
conclusive  with  respect  to  equal  compensation  for 
equal  time,  since,  if  one  increases  in  a  given  time  the 
utility  of  a  product  ten,  and  another  is  able  to  in- 
crease it  twenty  in  the  same  time,  it  is  clear  that  the 
service,  and  hence  the  compensation,  of  the  latter 
would  be  double  that  of  the  former  ;  for  time,  though 
an  important  factor,  is  not  the  only  one  in  determin- 


RATIO   IN   EXCHANGE.  235 

ing  the  ratio  of  service  and  of  compensation.  Tlie 
ENERGY  exerted  tlirougli  the  time  engaged  and  the 
thought  employed  are  also  elements  in  the  produc- 
tion and  consequent  compensation. 

RATIO   IN   EXCHANGE. 

Unlike  the  ratio  of  utility,  which  is  a  constant 
quantity,  the  ratio  of  exchange  is  an  ever-varying 
one,  subject  to  a  variety  of  fluctuations  from  a  va- 
riety of  inciting  causes — as  by  the  occurrence  of 
plenty  or  scarcity,  the  changing  tastes  and  fashions, 
by  imperfect  judgments  and  erroneous  estimates  of 
people,  forestalling  and  purposed  manipulations  of 
trade,  and  by  bulling  and  bearing  the  market,  result- 
ing in  insane  advances,  followed  by  corresponding 
declines  and  actual  "  panics."  Disproportionate  sup- 
ply results  mainly  from  unequal  application  of  labor 
to  desired  uses  or  from  unequal  jDroducts  from  the  same 
labor,  as  when  a  crop  is  more  than  usually  abundant 
or  short.  The  same  result  follows  in  the  tendency 
among  a  people  to  engage  in  new  enterprises,  or  in 
the  production  of  a  particular  commodity  or  crop, 
which  has  come  into  popular  favor  and  promises  ex- 
tra remuneration.  The  effect  of  fashion  to  change 
prices,  especially  in  matters  of  dress,  must  be  famil- 
iar to  all.  Every  merchant  or  manufacturer  has  ex- 
perience of  the  loss  sustained  by  allowing  a  stock  of 
goods  to  remain  on  hand  until  they  have  become  un- 
I'lisliionablo. 

The  result  of  forestalling  and  molding  the  market 
to  raise  or  lower  prices  needs  little  illustration.  The 
methods  are  too  numerous  and  varied  to  be  described 


236  SOCIAL   WEALTH. 

here.  It  is  sufficient  to  point  out  that,  under  monop- 
oly of  the  raw  material,  and  the  forced  competition 
resulting  from  that  cause,  it  is  easy  for  those  con- 
trolling capital  to  put  down  the  price  in  the  market 
below  the  mean  when  they  seek  to  purchase  for  hold- 
ing, and  to  put  up  the  prices  above  the  mean  when 
they  wish  to  selL  They  are  thus  enabled,  not  merely 
to  take  advantage  of  the  ordinary  variations  in  sup- 
ply, but  to  create  artificial  supply  or  scarcity  as  suits 
their  purpose,  and  so  think  their  capital  has  earned 
something  when  it  has  merely  taken  the  earnings  of 
labor.  It  is  pointed  out  by  some  economists  that 
such  tampering  with  the  market  must  lead  to  disaster 
to  those  who  attempt  it ;  but  it  is  hardly  denied,  X 
think,  that  such  manipulations  occur,  for  dread  of 
disaster  does  not  prevent  gambling ;  and  that  they 
greatly  affect  the  fluctuations  of  price  is  well  known. 
That  is  the  only  question  I  am  discussing  now.  It 
will  be  seen  elsewhere  that  those  who  have  exclusive 
control  of  the  land  have  the  power  to  and  do  change 
wholly  the  fluctuation  in  its  price  from  a  variable 
ratio,  vibrating  each  way  from  a  neutral  point  to  a 
constantly  advancing  ratio,  loliich  7iever  recedes. 

The  fluctuation  in  the  price  of  things  uncontrolled 
by  monopoly  must  necessarily  rise  above  the  mean  as 
often  and  as  far  as  it  falls  below  the  mean.  The  pen- 
dulum swings  as  far  to  one  side  of  the  point  of  rest 
as  to  the  other ;  the  tide  rises  to  the  same  height 
above  and  falls  to  the  same  depth  below  the  general 
level.  Hence  the  cornering  of  land  places  that  out- 
side of  the  economic  law,  and  proves  it  not  a  proper 
subject  of  traffic.  There  is  also  a  fictitious  element 
in  trade,  which  cannot  be  too  soon  exposed  and  ex- 


EATIO   IN  EXCHANGE.  237 

purgatecl.  It  is  the  assumption  of  money  arbitrarily 
created  as  a  standard  of  value  or  mean  ratio  in  ex- 
change. It  is  absolutely  certain  that  gold  or  silver, 
which  are  made  legal  tender,  and  thus  despotically 
made  the  mean,  are  far  more  fluctuating  in  their 
value  than  iron,  tin,  or  copper,  and  that  in  long 
periods  even  more  than  the  cereals,  or  any  staple 
product  of  human  labor.  The  manipulators  of  the 
market  have,  therefore,  not  only  the  advantages  I 
have  pointed  out  in  respect  to  land  and  monopoliza- 
ble  commodities,  but  the  power,  by  locking  up  the 
tenders,  to  shift  the  mean  or  standard  by  which  prices 
are  determined  from  time  to  time. 

It  now  seems  only  necessary  to  ascertain  the  rela- 
tion which  the  ratio  of  use  sustains  to  the  ratio  of 
service  and  compensation,  and  through  that  to  the 
ratio  of  exchange,  in  order  to  form  a  basis  for  the  es- 
tablishment of  a  science  of  industry  and  social  eco- 
nomics as  exact  as  any  of  the  physical  sciences. 

The  Theorists,  if  such  term  is  due  them  by  court- 
esy, who  propounded  the  "  balance  of  trade  "  as  a 
government  policy,  made  but  little  pretense  to  exact- 
ness, but  entrenched  themselves  behind  the  narrow- 
est prejudice.  The  French  economists  built  upon 
<me  economic  factor,  the  produce  of  the  land,  whili; 
ignoring  labor,  except  as  a  dependent  adjunct.  The 
English  economists  built  upon  the  other  factor, 
"  labor,"  evading,  however,  its  relation  to  the  land. 
The  American  economists  of  the  Carey  school  recur 
to  the  "  l)alanco  of  trade  "  to  correct  the  omissions 
both  of  the  Frencli  and  of  tlie  English  schools,  but 
fail  to  a])pr(;liond  tliat  it  is  Ixith  "land  and  labor'' 
which  are  involved  in  any  and  all  industrial  produc- 


238  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

tion,  and  that  freedom  in  the  union  of  the  two  is  es- 
sential to  anything  like  freedom  of  exchange.  Now, 
since  no  desirable  thing  can  be  produced,  even  in  its 
trade  sense,  without  labor  and  its  application  to  the 
land,  it  follows  that  the  ratio  of  cost  is  proportionate 
to  the  extent  of  such  application,  and  since  these 
two  factors  only  are  concerned  in  the  production  of 
any  goods  whatsoever,  these  factors  only  can  \^e,  con- 
sidered in  any  attempt  at  a  scientific  system  of  di- 
vision. As  between  the  two,  then,  the  land  and  the 
labor,  the  economic  principle  is  this  :  To  the  land 
goes,  in  the  long  run  and  wide  range,  as  much  of 
every  element  as  has  been  taken  from  it.  It  would 
be  too  violent  a  stretch  of  the  most  elastic  of  eco- 
nomic principles  to  make  them  cover  the  reduction  of 
the  fertility  of  the  soil  and  the  exhaustion  of  its 
power  to  reproduce.  The  utility  of  any  commodity, 
therefore,  consists  in  that  reduction  to  form  or 
adaptation  of  it  for  use  ivhich  abstracts  nothing  from 
the  soil  hut  ichat  ivill  he  returned  to  it.  And  as  the  ele- 
ments of  fertility  go  back  to  the  land,  so  the  uses  go 
to  the  labor.  This  constitutes  what  Adam  Smith 
designates  "  the  natural  rate  of  wages,"  "  the  whole 
product  of  labor."  Without  discussing  this  proposi- 
tion as  scientifically  exact,  we  may  say,  with  entire 
exactness,  that  it  constitutes  the  ratio  of  utility  in 
the  service,  and,  therefore,  the  mean  ratio  of  ex- 
change. All  fluctuations  or  variations  from  this  mean 
arise  from  causes  set  forth  above,  or  of  a  character 
kindred  to  them. 

It  will  be  assumed  that  things  may  have  utility 
which  require  no  labor,  as  air  and  water,  which  are 
essential  to  life  and  health.     But  these  can  have  no 


EATIO   m  EXCHANGE.  239 

relation  to  escliange  until  they  are  privately  appro- 
priated, and  hence,  in  a  state  of  nature,  are  outside  of 
any  problem  of  exchange.  If  it  were  possible  to 
monopolize  the  air  and  water,  as  it  is  to  appropriate 
them  to  a  limited  extent,  so  as  to  make  them  ex- 
changeable commodities,  they  would  then,  indeed, 
command  a  price,  but  their  ratio  in  exchange  would 
still  correspond  to  the  amount  of  labor  required  to 
store  them  and  guard  and  maintain  the  monopoly,  or 
upon  the  service  which  they  would  impose  upon  those 
who  had  no  means  of  escape  from  the  operation  of 
the  usurpation. 

The  importance  of  a  branch  of  social  science  rest- 
ing upon  so  flimsy  and  kaleidoscopic  a  base  as  value 
when  economically  defined  must  be  seen  when  we 
reflect  that  the  causes  which  give  rise  to  the  most 
extreme  fluctuations  are  not  natural  but  wholly  arti- 
ficial, and  are  constantly  being  affected  by  partial  and 
class  legislation  and  by  crudely  unjust  social  and 
civil  customs.  We  can  conceive  of  the  indignation 
the  free  trade  economists  would  exhibit  should  a 
**  protectionist "  assert  that  tlie  high  prices  under  a 
prohibitory  tariff  were  nothing  but  the  result  of  the 
natural  laws  of  trade;  but  their  assumption  that, 
under  the  commercial  monopoly  of  the  land  or  the 
ownership  of  the  laborer,  we  have  an  equitable  or 
any  natural  system  of  exchange,  is  far  more  mon- 
strous and  trutli  defying.  While  traffic  in  land  re- 
mains, equity  in  exchange  is  im]iossible  under  protec- 
tion or  free  trade,  and  the  productive  laborer  of  any 
country  is  sul)ject  to  certain  despoliation,  which  is,  at 
most,  a  sliad(.'  worse  orbett<a-  und(!r  one  or  under  tlie 
other.  Ntiither  theory  has  any  warrantable  interest  to 


2-10  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

wliicli  tlie  attention  of  tlie  wealth-producer  need  be 
turned. 

We  liave  seen  that  even  where  both  land  and  the 
laborer  are  owned  and  treated  as  commodities,  the 
ratio  in  exchange  still  depends  upon  the  amount  of 
labor  any  commodit}'  or  proprietary  right  enables  it 
to  command.  The  value  of  a  right  to  hold  a  slave 
must,  in  the  economic  analysis,  depend  wholly  upon 
the  amount  of  labor  or  service  such  right  will  enable 
the  holder  to  exact.  So  ownership  in  the  land  can 
give  such  value  only  as  is  measured  by  the  amount 
of  labor  which  such  ownership  empowers  the  owner 
to  exact  from  those  who  cultivate,  occupy,  or  improve 
it.  It  is  impossible  to  conceive  of  a  commercial 
value  in  any  thing  which  is  not  measured  by  the 
amount  of  labor  it  has  cost  to  produce  it  or  will  cost 
to  reproduce  it,  or  that  it  will  command. 

It  is  plain  that  nothing  can  be  considered  actual 
service  but  that  which  has  promoted  the  production 
of  some  useful  thing  or  rendered  a  useful  service  to 
some  member  of  the  human  race.  The  natural  com- 
pensation of  any  service  consists  in  the  good  or  goods 
it  has  added  to  the  stock  of  human  well-being.  But 
it  by  no  means  follows  that,  under  the  rule  of  arbi- 
trary social  and  civil  institutions,  and  of  immoral ' 
and  subverted  relations,  these  compensations  will  be 
equitably  distributed,  or  have  any  just  division.  That 
is  the  crowning  fallacy  of  the  economists.  In  fact, 
under  such  rule,  they  are  sure  to  be  unjustly  diverted 
from  their  natural  tendency.  But  what  I  wish  par- 
ticularly to  emphasize  here  is  that  however  sub- 
jected and  enslaved  labor  may  be  in  any  place  or 
period,  it  is  the  labor  alone  which  begets  the  in- 


EATIO   IN   EXCHANGE.  241 

creased  utilities,  and  that  such  utilities  constitute 
the  compensation  with  which  nature  responds  to  the 
application  of  such  labor.  Only  the  man  whose  power 
and  will  subject  another,  and  who  virtually  owns 
his  labor,  can  apjDropriate  that  other's  natural  com- 
pensation. It  can  be  accomplished  only  in  a  general 
way  by  laws  or  customs  enforcing  servitude  ;  by  en- 
grossing land  and  opportunity,  and  by  the  social 
sanction  of  false  estimates  and  fraudulent  accounts 
in  exchange,  or  by  a  deceptive  and  shifting  standard 
of  value.  Service  or  labor  is  now  seen  to  be  the  par- 
ent of  all  created  goods  and  of  all  realized  utilities. 
The  natural  utilities,  as  of  the  land  and  opportunity, 
are  not  exchangeable  with  service  or  goods  produced 
by  labor  ;  for  the  reason  that  they  are  nature's,  and 
must  be  purchased  first  from  her,  and  have  and  re- 
quire no  labor  in  their  production. 

That  labor  or  service  is  the  basis  of  the  ratio  of 
exchange  may  be  seen  from  the  very  nature  of  the 
fluctuations  of  value  in  commerce,  even  under  the 
iniquitous  system  of  prevailing  trade.   These  fluctua- 
tions constantly  tend  to  a  mean  or  equilibrium,  which 
corresponds  in  every  respect  to  the  ratio  of  use.  The 
cereals,  for  instance,  tend  to  that  relative   market 
price  which  corresponds  to  their  ability  to  support 
human  life.     Wool,  silk,  cotton,  flax,  etc.,  tend  to  a 
price  relatively  corresponding  to  tlieir  abilitvto  pro- 
mote the  comfortable  and  becoming:  clothing  of  man- 
kind.     Lumber,    bricks,    stone,    and    other   building 
material,  tend  to   a  ]>rice  relatively  proportioned  to 
their  usefulness  in   effecting  shelter  and  ininist(U-ing 
to  the  comforts  and  onjoymeiits  of  life. 

The  Ratio  of  Sekvice,  as  determined  by  its  util- 


242  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

ity,  is,  therefore,  the  mean  ratio  of  exchange,  and  to- 
wards which  it  coiistautly  teuds  as  to  a  point  in 
equilihrio  iu  all  its  fluctuatious,  from  above  or  from 
below,  caused  by  whatever  disturbing  forces.  Other 
things  being  equal,  these  Huctuatious  rise  or  fall  to 
the  greatest  extremes  in  things  where  a  single  or 
limited  use  is  served.  Articles  of  mere  taste,  fancy, 
or  fashion  are  subject  to  great  inflation,  and  to  be 
reduced  to  a  valueless  condition  by  a  change  in  pop- 
ular whim.  Thus  grain  is  maintained  from  extreme 
depression,  even  in  very  abundant  years,  because  it 
can  be  turned  to  a  number  of  uses,  and,  by  being  fed 
to  cattle,  sheep,  and  swine,  can  be  converted  into 
beef,  mutton,  and  pork,  and  thus  have  its  value  con- 
served for  other  years.  If  some  commodity  could  be 
found  which  would  serve  every  requirement  of  hu- 
man need,  it  would  have  an  unvarying  rate. 

No  such  commodity  being  found,  it  is  still  conclu- 
sive of  the  princii:»le,  since  every  additional  or  extended 
use  to  which  a  thing  can  be  put  reduces,  in  a  posi- 
tive degree,  the  extent  of  the  fluctuations  in  its  ratio 
or  price  from  the  mean.  And  labor  or  service,  being 
the  parent  of  all  commodities  and  exchangeable  in  its 
varied  forms,  becomes  the  controlling  element  in  ex- 
change, commands  a  stable  price,  and  forms  the  only 
stable  ratio. 

Our  laws  regarding  money  tend,  in  a  high  degree, 
to  subvert  or  obscure  this  well-established  principle. 
They  take  one  commodity,  gold,  the  least  useful  of  all 
the  metals,  except  for  ornament,  of  a  scarce  and  very 
irregular  production,  and  whose  relative  value  fluctu- 
ates in  a  series  of  years,  more  than  that  of  any  staple 
commodity,  and  under  our  economic  system,  which 


RATIO   IN  EXCHANGE.  243 

regards  all  values  as  constantly  variable  quantities, 
assume  that  tins  one  value  is  invariable.  With  the  ad- 
dition of  silver  to  the  standard,  the  great  injustice  to 
labor  is  oul}-  divided,  not  removed,  and  capitalism  is 
constantly  trying  to  demonetize  that.  Now,  the  only 
invariable  ratio  is  the  ratio  of  use,  and  labor,  since  it 
alone  is  able  to  supply  all  useful  things  not  existing 
in  nature,  and  is  the  sole  agent  in  gathering  and  con- 
veying those  naturalh^  existing  or  Avhich  are  sponta- 
neously produced,  constitutes  the  only  thing  which 
can  have  stability  in  exchange  corresponding  in  any 
respect  to  the  ratio  of  utility. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  point  out  that,  for  many 
generations,  gold  or  gold  and  silver  has  been  a  mere 
basis  and  standard  of  value  in  the  commercial  world, 
while  ihe  promise  to  pay  these  has  constituted  mainly 
the  currency  and  medium  of  exchange  of  most  na- 
tions. It  is  foreign  to  the  purpose  of  this  inquiry  to 
show  how  the  method  of  issuing  this  credit  money  is 
productive  of  great  evil  to  the  interests  of  industry. 
Our  business  with  it  here  relates  to  its  assumption 
of  a  claim  to  which  it  is  not  entitled,  and  to  the  ex- 
tension of  its  usurpation,  indefinitely,  by  means  of 
multiplying  promises  to  pay,  promises  which  must  be 
li([uiduted,  if  at  all,  in  a  commodity  subject  to  every 
fluctuation  known  to  trade.  It  is  unnecessary  to  con- 
do  ran  or  justify  credit  money,  or  to  intimate  as  to  who 
should  be  autliorized  to  issue  it,  but  simply  to  point 
out  that  if  it  be  used  at  all  it  should  be  made  redeem- 
able in  labor  or  in  sndi  commodities  as  can  be  most 
readily  produced  by  tlio  greatest  numbers  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  should  be  exi)r(!SS(Hl  in  days'  or  hours'  ser- 
vice.    Wo  thus  see   tlio  unstable  basis   upon  Avhich 


2M  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

any  system  of  finance  or  of  exchange  must  rest  whicli 
denies  the  chiims  of  labor,  discrowns  it  and  sets  up  a 
golden  idol  in  its  stead.  The  trade  which  it  seeks  to 
explain  and  justify  is  a  subject  not  admitting  of  any 
scientific  explanation.  It  is  without  reciprocation,  a 
mere  contest  of  cunning  and  false  pretenses.  It  is  a 
commercial  duel  in  which  the  one  party  triumphs  at  the 
expense  of  the  other.  Professor  Perry  prides  himself 
upon  having  discovered  that  two  minds  have  to  meet 
in  determining  price,  or.  in  other  words,  that  "it  takes 
two  to  make  a  bargain,"  a  proverb,  I  think,  as  old  as 
modern  English  literature,  at  least.  Some  one  may 
yet  discover  that  it  takes  two  to  make  a  bet,  to  fight  a 
duel,  or  to  engage  in  a  prize  fight.  Our  science  of 
trade,  it  seems  to  me,  under  these  teachers,  ap- 
proaches as  near  to  true  economics  as  the  results  of 
abet,  duel,  or  prize  fight  does  to  a  principle  of  juris- 
prudence, because  such  contests  were  sometimes  held 
to  settle  differences  between  iudi\dviduals  or  com- 
munities. To  have  the  minds  of  two  men  meet,  though 
one  or  both  be  ignorant  and  prejudiced,  would  be  a 
singular  method  of  deciding  some  question  in  as- 
tronomy or  of  proportion  in  chemistry,  and  should 
not  be  thought  conclusive  in  economics. 

KATIO   OF  MATEELy:.   TO   SERVICE. 

The  ratio  of  exchange  equitably  relates,  not  only 
to  service,  but  also  to  the  proportion  of  earth  in 
which  such  service  is  incorporated  and  conveyed. 
This  applies  not  only  to  trade  between  nations,  but 
also  to  that  between  sections  of  the  same  country, 
ajid  between  cities  and  the  acfricultural  districts  more 


RATIO   OF  MATERIAL   TO   SERVICE.  245 

nearly  related.  A  disregard  of  this  principle  inevi- 
tably impoverishes  a  people  parting  with  a  greater 
proportion  of  fertilizing  matter  from  their  land  than 
is  returned  to  it.  The  best  lands  are  soon  wasted  in 
productive  power  by  such  a  process,  no  matter  how 
equitable  or  advantageous  the  trade  in  all  other  re- 
spects may  appear. 

The  economist  must  deal  with  proportions  as  they 
exist  in  nature,  and  not  as  they  are  ignorautlj'^  ac- 
cepted by  the  weak  and  dependent,  through  perverse 
circumstances  or  under  duress  ;  except,  indeed,  he 
seeks  to  defend  and  perpetuate  such  ignorance,  de- 
pendence, and  subjection,  or  the  abuses  which  spring 
from  such  misestimation. 

Our  railroad  system  and  great  modern  facilities  for 
transportion,  become  but  a  vast  means  to  advance 
the  transfer  of  the  crops,  freighted  with  the  fertile 
portion  of  the  earth  from  the  interior  to  the  seaboard, 
or  to  large  manufacturing  or  commercial  centers. 
They,  indeed,  take  back  articles  of  use,  some  of 
which  contain  elements  Avhich,  in  their  consumption, 
will  go  to  increase  the  fertility  of  the  soil,  and  als(^ 
some  commercial  fertilizers,  but,  in  the  main,  the 
balance  is  greatly  against  the  country. 

If  the  "  Balance  of  Trade  "  theory  had  embraced 
the  fertilizers  instead  of  the  precious  metals,  as  the 
basis  of  exclusion  from  exchange,  it  would  have  had 
some  scientific  importance.  And  if  "  Protection " 
meant  an  investigation  into  the  proportional  residue 
of  fertilizing  properties  after  consumption  of  ex- 
changeable conimcjdities,  and  a  careful  adjustment  of 
their  application  to  the  soils  from  which  the  su])ply 
is  drawn,  there  would  bo  some  logical  justification  for 


246  SOCIAL   WEALTH. 

the  use  of  that  term  in  economies ;  but  a  high  or 
prohibitory  tariff  may  keep  out  of  a  country  the  very 
elements  required  to  restore  fertility,  or  reduce  the 
amount  or  proportion  received  for  our  products. 

Besides,  the  most  dangerous  tendencies  which  re- 
quire to  be  guarded  against  are  also  active  between 
sections  of  the  same  country  where  commerce  is  un- 
impeded by  state  interference,  and  where  every  fa- 
cility exists  for  the  carrying  on  of  the  unequal  traffic. 
So  that  if  a  tariff  exerted  any  influence  to  prevent 
the  transfer  of  earthy  properties  from  one  country  to 
another,  it  could  affect  little  in  preventing,  but  much 
in  promoting,  the  impoverishment  of  the  land  through 
such  transfer  to  the  business  and  manufacturing  cen- 
ters and  their  wasteful  discharge  into  the  sewers. 

But  what  renders  this  exhaustive  process  most  de- 
structive of  all  is  the  taking  away  from  the  land  that 
portion  of  its  produce  which  goes  to  the  payment  of 
rent,  of  interest  on  purchase  money  of  the  land,  or  on 
borrowed  means  to  carry  on  the  farm,  and  of  profits 
to  the  dealer  and  speculator.  For  all  these  are  a 
dead  loss  to  the  land  or  to  the  labor.  The  only  ex- 
ception is  where  the  landlord,  banker,  or  profit- 
monger  resides  upon  the  estate  or  land  cultivated, 
so  that  the  products  of  consumption  get  replaced. 
In  that  case  the  labor  suffers  all.  But  even  under 
the  most  favorable  circumstances,  the  far  greater 
portion  of  the  produce  which  goes  to  these  channels 
is  exchanged  by  the  holder  for  goods  and  manufac- 
tures which,  in  consumption,  afford  little  or  no  fer- 
tilizing product.  A  tariff  can  have  no  possible  power 
to  check  these  drafts  upon  the  land  and  labor  of  a 
country.  Indeed,  under  the  highest  tariff  this  country 


VALUES  OF  LAND  AND  LABOR.  2-17 

has  ever  imposed,  this  exhaustive  process  has  been 
going  on  in  a  constantly  increasing  ratio.  The  inter- 
est on  our  government,  state,  and  corporation  bonds, 
raih'oad  bonds  and  interest  paying  stocks,  liekl  abroad, 
and  rent  for  our  own  lands  paid  to  aliens,  has  enor- 
mously increased  during  the  last  twenty-live  years, 
and  has  proved  wholly  an  exhaustive  tax  levied  upon 
our  soil  and  upon  the  remuneration  of  our  labor. 
For  all  this  vast  drain  on  our  land  and  on  the  ener- 
gies and  life  of  our  people,  we  have  received  abso- 
lutely nothing.  It  has  all  been  paid  for  in  privilege, 
in  concession  of  private  rights  and  other  imponder- 
able and  intangible  forms  of  incorporeal  and  fictitious 
wealth.  Nothing  whatever  which  improves  the  land, 
or  feeds,  clothes,  or  shelters  labor,  has  been  returned 
for  all  the  amounts  thus  drawn. 

VALUES   OF  LAND    AND    LABOR  UNDER    COM^IERCLiL    SUB- 
JECTION. 

Commercial  ownership  of  land  or  of  labor  operates 
U)  produce  very  remarkable  transpositions  of  value, 
and  of  the  meaning  and  application  of  terms.  This 
has  been  noticed  by  the  later  economists,  thougli 
they  have  failed  to  give  it  other  attention  than  to 
illustrate  their  theory  that  value  has  no  necessary 
dependence  on  labor.  Macleod  remarks  that  "so 
long  as  the  science  of  economics  was  limited  to  the 
viaierial  produrtH  of  the  carl/i  (and  of  labor),  the  phrase 
'production  and  consumption'  was  perfectly  intelli- 
gible and  unobjectionable.  But  when  the  term 
wealth  and  the  science  of  economics  were  extended 
to  include  labor  and  rkjIilH  (dominion  over  the  land 


248  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

particularly — the  italics  and  parenthesis  are  mine) 
great  awkwardness  arises.  Eor  even  though  it  is 
carefully  explained  that  production  means  nothing 
but  offering  for  sale,  and  consumption  means  noth- 
ing but  purchase,  it  is  very  awkward  to  speak  of  the 
production  and  consumption  of  labor."  It  would  be 
equally  awkward  to  speak  of  the  production  and 
consumption  of  land.  "Who,"  he  asks,  "would 
understand  the  production  and  consumption  of 
debts,  shares,  the  funds,  copyrights,  patent  rights, 
etc.  ?"  It  would  indeed  be  awkward,  but  it  is  the 
awkwardness  which  always  attends  the  attaching  of 
properties  to  things  in  theoretical  assumption,  which 
they  do  not  possess  —  an  awkwardness  which  has 
brought  untold  misfortune  upon  the  workers  of  the 
world,  and  perverted  the  whole  business  and  indus- 
try of  society,  and  which  renders  the  reduction  of 
the  science  of  social  wealth  to  a  mere  matter  of  trade 
between  sharpers.  Otherwise  the  impossibility  of 
classifying  land  and  labor  with  commodities  would 
become  so  apparent  that  the  most  pedantic  econo- 
mist could  not  fail  to  observe  it. 

Coupled  with  the  definition  of  the  land  value,  that 
it  is  the  present  value  of  the  "  right  to  the  series  of 
future  products  forever,''  we  see  what  has  been 
demonstrated  in  regard  to  rent  and  interest,  that 
such  value  proceeds  by  a  duplicate  geometric  ratio, 
while  the  actual  production  of  wealth  only  increases 
by  an  arithmetical  ratio,  thus  not  only  covering  the 
entire  product  of  the  associated  industry  of  the 
world,  but  also  the  potential  ability  to  gather  an  in- 
finite series  of  productions,  which  would  absorb  the 
universe  and  dethrone  omnipotence. 


VALUES  OF  LAND  AND  LABOR.         249 

There  is  but  one  method  by  which  an  increase  can 
be  obtained — for  one  to  exchange  his  goods,  if  possi- 
ble, for  a  man  or  for  hind.  If  by  brute  force,  supe- 
rior cunning,  or  the  rights  of  usurpation,  enforced  by 
custom  or  man-made  law,  he  is  enabled  to  buy  a 
laborer,  he  could  then  make  his  surplus  productive  ; 
or  under  commercial  monopoly  of  the  soil  he  might 
buy  a  certain  amount  of  land,  when  precisely  the 
same  results  would  arise. 

It  will  be  observed  that  this  absorptive  process, 
whether  carried  on  by  the  subjection  of  labor  directly 
or  through  capitalistic  appropriation  of  the  land,  de- 
pends altogether  upon  the  numbers  of  workers  who 
are  brought  under  tribute.  With  one  slave  the  owner 
could  only  command  an  increase  or  income  which 
the  labor  of  one  could  furnish.  To  realize  the  pro- 
gressive income  he  must,  by  the  same  ratio,  reduce 
increasing  numbers  to  bondage.  And  so  the  land- 
owner must,  in  the  same  ratio,  multiply  his  farms  and 
increase  his  tenants.  And  as  these  basic  relations 
attach  themselves  to  other  businesses,  and  as  the  at- 
tempts to  obtain  annunities  from  these  sources  pre- 
vail, the  subjection  of  labor  must  proceed  in  the  same 
ratio  in  every  field  of  industry.  80  that,  indeed,  capi- 
talistic increase  has  and  can  have  nowhere  logical 
basis  or  aim,  but  in  the  progressive  subjection  of  the 
land  and  of  the  labor  of  a  people.  And  one  must  be 
over-credulous  to  suppose  that  economists  wdio  jus- 
tify or  ignore  these  systems  of  industrial  inversion 
will  ever  give  logical  consideration  to  the  equities 
of  tlie  present  system  of  labor  compensation  or  of 
positive;  rocipr(;cation  in  exchange. 

Now,  where  one  or  both  of  these  usurpations  exist, 


250  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

and  land  or  labor,  or  land  alone,  is  made  a  marketable 
commodity  and  can  be  bought  and  sold  as  a  basis  of 
trade,  of  course  the  money  or  goods  which  will  ex- 
change for  these  fictitious  rights  will  necessarily 
command  the  same  service  from  the  work  of  society 
as  the  rights  themselves,  and  hence  will  tax  the  earn- 
ings of  labor  in  the  same  degree.  To  realize  this  tax 
by  any  device  whatever  is  to  recur  to  one  of  these 
forms  of  usurpations  over  the  man,  or  over  the  land 
he  must  cultivate  to  produce  the  things  so  taxed. 
And  this  so  clearly  appears  in  comparing  the  values 
of  commodities  with  the  values  of  these  assumed 
rights  over  land  and  labor,  that  only  the  bare  state- 
ment is  required. 

The  value  of  the  laborer,  when  a  chattel,  depends 
wholly  on  the  right  to  command  his  labor,  and  the 
amount  of  labor  he  can  be  made  to  perform.  It  con- 
sists of  the  present  value  of  such  labors  as  the  slave 
shall  ever  perform,  and  if  hereditary,  of  the  possible 
labors  of  children  and  children's  children  to  all  time. 
Here  is  not  only  a  producing  but  a  multiplying  factor, 
which,  under  the  Malthusian  idea  of  population,  be- 
comes a  progressive  series,  like  capitalistic  increase, 
by  a  duplicate  ratio.  Having  by  "  a  mere  fiat  of  the 
human  will  produced  "  a  commodity  which  contains 
this  power  of  increase,  the  value  can  be  readily  im- 
parted to  other  commodities,  exchangeable  with  it, 
however  inert.  Outside  of  such  a  system  the  value 
of  such  goods  has  a  definitely  determined  measure, 
and  is  exchangeable  with  commodities  of  equally  de- 
terminate and  positive  computation.  But  the  value  of 
the  slave  consists  alone  in  his  capacity  to  go  on  producing 


VALUES  OF  LAND  AND  LABOK.        251 

commodities  indefniidy  for  all  time  and  multipljing 
himself  in  his  posterit3^ 

All  commodities,  pi^ojjer,  have  vahies  consumable 
and  specific.  These  values  begin  and  determine 
in  use.  The  value  of  labor,  on  the  other  hand, 
under  its  treatment  as  a  commodity,  is  not  a 
thing  to  be  consumed,  and,  as  Mr,  Macleod  says,  it 
becomes  "  very  awkward  "  to  speak  of  it  in  that  con- 
nection. It  is  for  what  it  dues  that  it  is  valuable,  and 
this  value  attaches  not  only  to  what  it  will  do  to-day 
but  for  all  time.  The  value  of  the  land  is  the  same 
in  this  respect,  that  it  is  accumulative,  yet  depending 
wholly  upon  the  earnings  of  labor  upon  it,  or  the  ex- 
haustion of  its  productive  powers. 

It  is  the  characteristic  of  all  incomes  without  labor 
that  their  values  depend  wholly  upon  the  increase 
per  cent.,  which  proceeds  by  equal  ratios,  while  labor 
can  only  produce  by  equal  differences.  Thus  values 
or  properties  may  be  multiplied  to  any  extent,  by  any 
forceful  or  fraudulent  device,  begetting  a  rate  of 
profit,  rent,  or  interest  upon  it.  Watered  stock  has 
the  same  value  as  original  stock,  and  original  stock 
becomes  valueless  when  the  two  no  longer  yield  an 
income.  Here  the  distinction  between  value  in  use 
and  value  in  capitalistic  investment  is  drawn,  and  ap- 
pears where  increase  witliout  work  ceases,  and  where 
real  and  useful  things  are  sought  and  mutually  ex- 
changed for  coiisum])tiou. 

And  the  same  distinction  we  drew  between  private 
and  social  wealth  applies  here  also.  Those  tilings 
whicli  are  required  for  consum])ti()ii  by  the  individ- 
ual, which  make  uj)  tlie  pennan(;nt  interest  in  family 
and  social  life,  retain  a  stable  value,  though   they 


252  SOCLVL   WEALTH. 

are  never  employed  to  earn  income.  Those  other 
rights  and  "  incorporeal  property  "  which  infringe 
social  right  and  absorb  the  fruits  of  social  industry 
without  return,  are  confined  wholly  to  rights  over 
labor  direct  or  through  control  of  the  land,  which 
place  values  not  in  their  utility  to  serve  human  needs, 
but  in  their  power  to  lay  the  industry  of  society 
under  a  perpetually  multiplying  tribute. 

When  a  man  buys  a  coat  or  a  dinner,  he  regards  it 
as  of  sufficient  value  to  pay  its  fair  price,  without  any 
consideration  as  to  whether  it  will  enable  him  to  earn 
an  income  without  work.  And  this  is  true  of  nearly 
everything  consumed  by  individual  men  and  their 
families,  or  by  the  world  generally.  It  is  only  the 
trader,  the  banker,  or  landlord  who  measures  price 
by  the  profit,  interest,  or  rent  it  will  exploit.  The 
laborer,  for  his  day's  work,  anticii3ates  the  means  to 
furnish  food,  shelter,  and  raiment  for  himself,  his  wife 
and  children.  So  it  is  with  the  mechanic,  artisan, 
or  professional. 

Profit  from  the  land  can  only  arise  from  taking  the 
award  of  nature  from  him  who  tills  it,  and  profit  from 
other  property  or  stocks  can  only  spring  from  the 
earnings  of  labor,  since  money  or  goods  put  into  any 
enterprise  have  no  power  to  increase  or  multiply 
themselves. 

Thus  the  worker  is  required  to  earn  his  own  and 
all  other  incomes  whatever  by  the  devices  of  "  pro- 
prietary rights,"  labor  "  contracts,"  and  "  legal  ten- 
ders." In  order  to  make  him  equal,  or  give  him  an 
equitable  opportunity  under  deprivation  of  land,  it 
would  be  necessary  that  the  wages  for  his  day's  work 
should  be  paid  in  notes  bearing  compound  interest, 


VALUES  OF  LAND  AND  LABOR.         253 

or  calculating  the  thing  in  days'  work,  instead  of  dol- 
lars, for  his  year's  labor  of  three  hundred  days,  he 
should  be  paid  a  year  and  fifteen  or  eighteen  days' 
labor  of  some  one  else ;  and  for  his  second  year's 
labor  he  should  be  paid  three  hundred  and  thirty- 
seven  days'  labor,  and  thus  increase  for  the  third  to 
the  tenth  in  same  proportion,  when  it  would  be  five 
hundred  for  the  last  three  hundred  days'  work,  and 
for  the  second,  third,  and  fourth  decades  in  the  same 
progressive  proportion. 

Now,  if  the  capitalistic  formula  had  any  possible 
equitable  relation  to  industry  and  the  exchange  of 
services  or  commodities,  it  would  require  that  the 
three  hundred  days'  labor  in  his  fortieth  year  should 
be  paid  in  about  two  thousand  days  of  the  equally 
efficient  and  serviceable  labor  of  some  one  else.  To 
apply  any  such  principle  to  the  award  of  labor  is 
seen  to  be  too  absurd  to  be  stated.  Thus  it  is  seen 
that  the  increase  of  goods  in  whatever  form  without 
labor  is  not  only  logically  but  mathematicall}^  im- 
possible ;  and  that  all  those  values  which  are  cre- 
ated by  usurious  taking  are  fraudulent,  and  not 
entitled  to  any  social  or  economic  recognition,  except 
in  so  far  as  it  becomes  necessary  to  denounce  and 
expose  them. 

We  thus  see  that  the  artificial  capitalization  of  the 
land  or  of  the  labor  begets  a  system  of  values,  which 
are  subject  to  no  classification  with  values  of  utility 
or  service,  and  are  impossible  to  be  exchanged  with 
them,  or  to  form  any  equation  whatever  in  any  prob- 
lem in  which  labor  or  its  compensation  is  involved. 
And  it  is  e<jually  apparent  that  the  later  school  of 
economists  perceive  this,  and  hence,  by  use  of  tho 


254  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

equivocal  term  value,  seek  to  reduce  values  of  every 
kind  to  the  meaning  of  its  use  in  speculation  and  ex- 
ploitation. But  this  timely  subterfuge  cannot  long 
serve.  The  very  appeal  to  facts  which  tbis  school 
makes  suggests  the' absurdity  of  classifying  land  and 
labor  with  the  products  resulting  only  from  their 
union,  or  of  classing  incomes  without  labor  with  the 
earnings  of  labor,  or  the  wages  of  the  toilers  with  the 
wages  of  the  spoilers.  And  thus  the  great  learning 
and  trained  intellects  of  this  school  are  destined  to 
have  a  short  triumph  over  the  credulity  of  the  people. 
They  evidently  comprehend  the  Niagara  toward  which 
the  old  school  theory  was  drifting  the  craft  of  capi- 
talism, and  so  attempt  to  stem  the  current  by  ignor- 
ing labor  altogether  as  the  creative  force,  and  by 
parading  superficial  truths  and  effecting  a  systemati- 
zation  of  phenomena  dependent  upon  the  very  wrong 
it  is  endeavoring  to  uphold,  show  that  wealth  is  a 
matter  only  incidentially  due  to  work,  but  mainly 
the  product  of  "  rights,"  knowledge,"  "  credit,"  etc. 


CHAPTER  XTL. 


TAXATION   AS   A   RElVfEDY. 


Tax^vtionIs  defined  as  "  tlie  exaction  of  money  from 
the  individual  for  the  service  of  the  state."  And 
though  much  has  been  written  to  explain  the  great 
"  number  of  its  practical  difficulties  and  theoretical 
niceties,"  I  am  not  aware  that  any  one  has  given  it 
its  true  economic  definition.  It  has  been  supposed 
to  have  "  two  sets  of  considerations — those  which 
aflfect  the  justice  of  a  tax,  and  those  which  affect  its 
productiveness."  It  is  candidly  admitted  that  "  tax- 
ation, indeed,  has  so  frequently  been  the  means  of 
perpetrating  political  injustice  that  the  term  has 
fallen  into  bad  popular  repute.  Whenever  the  pro- 
duce of  a  tax  is  used  otherwise  than  in  the  service 
of  those  who  pay  it,  the  tax  is  unjust.  In  its  more 
oppressive  form,  it  has  been  levied  on  conquered 
states  for  the  benefit  of  the  conquerors,  and  in  this 
'sense  it  has  sometimes  been  called  tribute,  Tlie  di- 
rection which  all  constitutional  struggles  to  cleanse 
taxati(m  from  injustice  have  taken,  has  been  thatr  of 
self-taxation  "  (Cham.  Enc).  But  the  extent  to  which 
such  struggle  has  yet  attained  lias  been  merely  to 
cou])le  taxation  with  representation.  Be3'ond  this  it 
has  not  as  yet  reached  any  well-d(;fined  princi))le.  A 
niiijoritv  rule  of  the  whole  peo})le  cannot  make  an 
unjust  tiling  just,  any   more  tliau  an  oligarcOiy  or  a 


256  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

czar.  I  do  not  wisli,  however,  to  discuss  tlie  subject 
in  its  political  asf)ect,  but  simply  to  inquire  what  the 
tax  is  in  economics.  A  voluntary  contribution  for 
certain  objects  of  a  general  or  a  social  nature  may,  or 
may  not,  have  an  importance  economically,  since,  if 
it  be  a  gratuity  or  donation  it  may  have  no  relation 
to  an  exchange,  but  if  it  refer  to  a  matter  in  which 
the  party  has  a  personal  interest,  or  even  a  desire  to 
see  certain  social  aims  accomplished,  it  is  reasonable 
to  conclude  that  he  considers  the  satisfaction  expe- 
rienced equivalent  to  the  contribution.  But  any  in- 
voluntary tax,  by  whatsoever  authority  imposed,  is 
in  the  only  sense  in  which  it  can  enter  into  any  eco- 
nomical problem  a  "  compulsory  exchange." 

That  the  taxes  assessed  under  the  most  popular 
governments  are  mostly  used  "  otherwise  than  in  the 
service  of  those  who  pay  it,"  is  simply  notorious ; 
the  only  circumstance  appearing  to  the  contrary 
being  the  fact  that,  in  direct  taxation,  capital  pays 
the  main  proportion  immediately ;  but  it  is  always 
sooner  or  later  shifted  to  productive  labor,  which 
ultimately  pays  all.  The  tax  is  often  wholly  squan- 
dered in  the  interest  of  profit-mongering  speculations. 
Taxes  on  land  are  not  taken  from  the  rent,  as  held  by 
the  advocates  of  "  Land  Nationalization  "  and  "  Gradu- 
ated Tax,"  but  are  an  additional  extortion  perpetrated 
upon  labor,  and  generally  in  the  interest  of  an  ex- 
ploiting class  or  clique. 

But  really  the  tax,  however  scrupulously  applied, 
and  to  the  benefit  of  the  party  paying  it,  is  still  a 
compulsory  exchange,  for,  althoiagh  such  exchange  is 
usuall}'  unjust  or  unequal,  the  fact  that  it  is  so  is  not 
essential  to  forced  exchange,  which  is  a  violation  of 


TAXATION  AS   A   REMEDY.  257 

freedom,  even  should  the  exchange  prove  more  favor- 
able to  the  party  upon  whom  it  is  imposed. 

Adam  Smith  makes  it  appear  that  man  is  the 
only  trading  animal.  He  says,  "No  one  has  ever 
known  dogs  to  exchange  bones."  Doubtless  this  is 
true;  but  we  often  see  the  bone  exchange  the  dogs. 
This  is  by  a  brutal  compulsion,  in  which  one  dog 
takes  the  bone  from  a  weaker  dog ;  and,  like  the 
taxing  power,  usually  giving  or  leaving  nothing  in 
exchange.  And  yet  taxation  has  no  justification  in 
ethics  or  economics,  unless  it  is  in  equation  with 
some  service  which  the  taxing  power  has  rendered 
the  taxed  individual.  And  however  equitable  such 
tax  might  be  made  to  compensate  such  service,  still, 
if  it  be  a  service  not  desired  by  the  individual,  but 
which  he  would  prefer  to  do  without,  it  would  still 
be  compulsory  and  hence  not  compatible  with  per- 
sonal freedom  or  with  such  an  exchange  as  is  con- 
templated in  economics.  The  taking  of  the  bone 
from  the  "  under  dog  "  would  still  be  the  brutal  act, 
although  it  might  chance  to  put  him  in  scent  of  an 
equally  good  or  even  better  one.  The  right  of  the 
individual  and  the  very  fundamental  principle  of 
economics,  which  is  "The  Science  of  Exchanges,"  re- 
quires, not  merely  that  the  tax  shall  be  equitabl}- 
proportioned  to  the  service  which  the  state  or  gov- 
ernment has  rendered,  but  that  it  shall  be  only  for 
such  service  as  the  individual  has  voluntarily  ac- 
cepted and  made  available  to  his  use.  The  line  be- 
tween freedom  and  d(!S])otism  is  drawn  just  here. 
The  form  of  government  has  essentially  nc^tliing  to  do 
with  it,  except  as  it  may  give  a  greater  or  lesser  facil- 


258  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

ity  for  disregarding  the  wishes  of  the  taxpayer.     The 

POWER  OF  TAXATION  IS  THE  VERY  ESSENCE  OF  DESPOTISM. 

To  the  individual  who  is  forced  to  make  the  trans- 
fer, there  can  remain  but  little  in  the  choice  between 
the  despotism  of  an  autocracy,  an  aristocracy,  or  of 
a  democracy.  It  is  a  compulsory  exchange,  and  car- 
ries with  it  all  the  potencies  of  all  the  slaveries.  For 
the  power  to  enforce  taxation  is  the  power  to  take 
the  earnings  of  labor  and  make  such  return  as  it 
pleases,  or  none  at  all ;  a  result  which  chattelism 
hardly  ever  gave. 

Now,  it  is  to  such  a  questionable  power  which  Mr. 
George  and  his  particular  disciples  look  to  right  the 
wrongs  of  labor — and  of  capital(?).  They  see  no 
way  to  cease  doing  the  wrongs  or  prevent  their  re- 
currence, but  have  a  "  sovereign  remedy  "  to  apply  to 
the  mischiefs  which  the  wrongs  produce.  That  is 
found  in  absolute  power  of  taxation,  amounting  to 
"confiscation"  in  respect  to  "natural  rents,"  and 
which  Mr.  Clark  suggests  is  not  merely  a  natural 
right  of  government,  but  "  the  higher  law  of  prop- 
erty," and  which  another  disciple  has  discovered  to 
be  the  "  missing  link  "  between  the  Georgian  theory 
and  the  "divine  right." 

More  metaphysical  than  his  leader,  Mr.  Clark  de- 
rives this  law  from  the  "  bounty  of  nature,"  at  the 
same  time  chiding  M^'-  George  for  using  so  "  inexact 
a  cripple  as  the  word  '  land '  to  convey  so  vast  a 
meaning." 

But  Mr.  Clark's  conclusion,  that  this  "  whole  ma- 
terial universe  outside  of  man "  should  properly 
apply  to  matter  transmuted  by  human  powers  (and 
why  not  to  those  powers  themselves?),  as  well  as  to 


TAXATION  AS   A   REMEDY.  259 

the  "  raw  material  and  natural  forces,"  is  unanswer- 
able ;  and  whatever  is  derived  therefrom  should 
necessarily  become  subject  to  taxation  or  confisca- 
tion, as  well  as  the  rent.  There  is  no  logical  escape 
for  Mr.  George  from  this  dilemma,  which  seems  only 
half  comprehended  by  his  disciple.  For  the  "  nat- 
ural(?) "  profits  and  interest,  as  well  as  the  rent,  if 
they  exist  outside  of  the  exercise  of  forceful  or  fraud- 
ulent powers,  are  "  unearned  increase  "  and  a  mal- 
appropriation  of  "  the  bounty  of  nature  "  which  should 
be  confiscated  or  taxed  back  as  the  "  birthright "  of 
the  whole  people. 

This  is  plainly  the  logical  conclusion  to  the  major 
and  minor  propositions,  and  to  stop  the  short  of  this  is 
to  dishonor  the  theory  altogether. 

The  truth,  however,  is  that  these  propositions  are 
merely  sentimental  metaphysics  and  without  the 
least  practical  importance  whatever.  If  there  is  a 
"  bounty  of  nature,"  it  is  for  those  who  take  it.  Even 
Mr.  Clark's,  or  rather  Mr.  Smith's,  apothegm  that 
the  "  unconscious  is  the  property  of  the  conscious," 
amouuts  to  this  and  nothing  more.  The  conscious 
or  knowing  appropriate  that  which  is  unconscious 
or  unknowing,  and  also  that  Avhich  is  less  con- 
scious or  knowing,  as  men  with  animals,  and  supe- 
rior with  subject  races  of  mankind.  There  is  noth- 
ing inconsistent  in  one  of  these  syllogisms  with  any 
slavery  or  injustice  which  the  world  has  ever  known. 

With  neither  Mr.  Smith's  nor  Mr.  George's  general- 
izations is  tlierc  anything  inctoinpatiblo  in  the  taking 
of  rent,  interest,  or  spc.'culative  i)r<)fits,  nor  do  thoy  so 
much  as  alh)W  that  any  escape  is  possible  from  tlieso 
acknowledged  evils  through  any  "  bounty  of  nature," 


260  SOCIAL  WEAI.TH. 

or  any  workings  of  the  universe,  but  only  through 
the  intervention  of  some  human  device  like  the  con- 
fiscation of  rent  after  it  has  accumulated  by  natural 
law,  or  of  getting  in  a  "  death  rate  tax  "  upon  what 
nature  would  otherwise  bestow  upon  the  conscious, 
letting  the  unconscious  and  the  less  conscious  go  un- 
fed and  unclothed,  and,  in  fact,  devoured. 

This  tax  or  confiscation,  then,  so  far  from  being  in 
accordance  with  nature,  is  corrective  or  subver- 
sive of  nature  according  to  the  showing  of  its 
own  advocates,  and  is  intended  not  at  all  to  "  com- 
plete economical  science,"  as  they  claim,  but  to  cor- 
rect nature's  blunders.  '^  What  neither  of  them  seem 
capable  of  comprehending  is  that  the  civil  power  to 
collect  rent  make  compulsory  exchanges  and  enforce 
unequal  contracts  is  the  evil  to  be  abated,  and  not 
the  inability  of  nature  to  bestow  her  bounty  as  she 
desires,  or  to  effect  the  equality  she  intends. 

Mr.  Clark  parades  the  great  Peripatetic  Philoso- 
pher as  having  given  the  name  "  bounty  of  Nature  " 
to  the  indescribable  thing  he  bases  his  "  higher  law 
of  property  "  upon.  I  think  it  was  the  same  philos- 
opher who  named  the,  to  him,  mysterious  rising  of 
water  in  a  pump,  "  nature's  horror  of  a  vacuum." 
The  one  definition  is  as  valuable  in  hydraulics  as  the 
other  is  in  economics. 

The  entire  school  are  simply  ignorant  of,  or  else 
affect  to  ignore,  the  "law  of  use,"  or  that  the  doing  and 
enjoying   of   a   use    are    inseparable  in   nature.      I 

*  It  was  said  of  the  elder  Beeclier,  that  when  spoken  to  about  "  The 
Conflict  of  Ages,"  written  by  a  son  of  liis,  he  expressed  a  regret,  since  if 
"  the  Almighty  God  had  got  himself  into  a  tight  place,  he  did  not 
think  Edward  could  get  him  out." 


TAXATION  AS   A   REMEDY.  261 

find  nature  bountiful  to  me  in  causing  the  tree  to 
grow  whicli  I  have  planted  and  cared  for,  but  it  is 
bountiful  to  the  grub,  who,  "  conscious  "  of  its  "  prop- 
erty in  the  unconscious"  tree,  proceeds  to  appro- 
priate it,  not  by  devouring  its  entire  bulk,  nor  even 
"two  per  cent.;"  but  by  eating  away  a  little  bark 
and  sap  near  the  ground,  which,  however,  girdles  and 
destroys  a  noble  fruit-bearing  tree  to  sustain  its  in- 
significant life  for  a  brief  season.  Truly  nature  is 
bountiful  to  him !  I  plant  potatoes,  squashes,  etc., 
and  nature  co-operates  to  make  them  grow  Avith  mj's- 
terious  rapidity  ;  but  the  conscious  Colorado  and  the 
Gourd  beetle  claim  their  birthright  in  "  the  bount}-  of 
nature,"  and,  in  an  inattentive  hour,  I  find  my  plants 
destroyed  and  hoj^es  of  harvest  blasted.  One  is  re- 
minded of  the  answer  of  the  boy  whose  pious  father 
was  laboring  to  impress  upon  his  mind  the  benefi- 
cence of  Providence  in  bestowing  the  long  bill  and 
long  and  slender  legs  upon  the  crane  in  order  that  he 
might  more  successfully  prey  upon  the  less  conscious 
piscatory  tribes,  and  thus  secure  a  supply  of  fo(Kl : 
"Don't  you  think  it  rather  hard  upon  the  fishV" 
Natures  gives  or  parts  with  nothing.  She  tenders 
uses,  but  exacts  return  of  everv  iota  of  substance  she 
intrusts  to  our  care.  Her  invariable  price  for  its  use 
is  the  labor  necessary  to  avail  oneself  of  its  benefits. 
She  exacts  nor  permits  rent,  interest,  or  taxation,  but 
repudiates  them  wholly  and  throws  them  back  upon 
labor  invariably  whenever  presented  to  her  for  can- 
cellation. 

Mr.  George  has  saved  tlie  critic  any  necessity  of 
ap])lying  the  rrdnclio  ad  (ilt.snrduiii  to  his  sclieme, 
l)y  insinuating  tliat  wo  ran  tax  land,  "  whether  culti- 


262  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

vated  or  left  waste ;  wealth,  whether  used  product- 
ively or  uni^rodiictively,  and  laborers  whether  they 
work  or  pla}^"  although  premising  at  the  beginning 
of  the  paragraph  that  "  all  taxes  must  come  from 
the  produce  of  land  and  labor,  since  there  is  no  other 
source  of  wealth  than  the  union  of  human  exertion 
with  the  material  and  forces  of  nature." 

Of  all  methods  and  schemes  for  ameliorating  the 
condition  of  labor,  that  of  "  tinkering  taxation"  is 
the  most  stupid  when  not  criminal.  To  abolish  tax- 
ation altogether  would  certainly  relieve  its  burdens. 

A  century  ago,  taxation  was  regarded  as  a  very  neces- 
sary method  of  sustaining  the  church  and  promoting 
religion.  A  tithe  of  labor's  earnings  was  considered 
no  more  than  a  fair  compensation  for  religious  in- 
struction of  the  people  and  their  guidance  in  the 
path  which  led  to  future  felicity.  It  is  not  necessary 
to  inquire  now  whether  this  was  an  equitable  ex- 
change. We  know  it  was  mainly  a  compulsory  one, 
and  that  it  was  this  prerogative  to  tax  the  people 
and  enforce  this  compulsory  exchange,  and  not  any 
tendency  of  true  religion,  which  begat  the  wars  and 
persecutions  generally  known  as  religious.  This 
power,  which,  for  fifteen  centuries,  was  almost  un- 
questioned in  church  or  state,  is  now  seen  to  be  the 
most  pernicious  thing,  not  even  promoting  in  the 
least  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  professed  to  be 
employed. 

Now,  Mr.  Clark,  to  correct  nature's  mistakes  in 
conferring  her  bounties,  proposes  to  empower  the 
state  to  impose  two  tithes  upon  labor,  for  his  two  per 
cent,  upon  all  the  assets,  including  land,  would  amount 
to  about  twenty  per  cent,  of  the  yearly  production. 


Taxation  as  a  eemedy.  263 

Thus  cliurcli  and  state  miglit  botli  be  endowed  to  look 
after  the  material  and  spiritual  interests  of  mankind, 
giving  such  return  in  the  compulsory  exchange  as 
suited  the  managers  of  each.  This  would  give  one 
in  ten  for  our  secular  and  the  same  for  our  religious 
government.  With  respect  to  the  church,  however, 
it  is  divided  into  so  many  sects  that  there  seems  no 
way  bat  to  make  her  contributions  voluntary,  and 
each  one  pay  what  he  thinks  an  equivalent  for  her 
services,  and  so  a  free  if  not  wholly  an  equitable 
exchange. 

But  might  not  the  state  also  deal  on  the  voluntary 
principle  ?  I  think  so ;  and  then  each  one  could  have 
the  form  of  government  he  preferred,  and  pay  as  dearly 
or  as  lightly  for  it  as  he  found  to  suit  his  ideas, 
the  same  as  he  does  in  matters  of  religion,  and  might 
have  free  trade,  protection,  or  prohibition,  fiat  or  metal 
money,  as  he  individually  preferred.  Since  taxes  can 
be  produced  only  "  by  the  union  of  human  exertion  with 
the  material  and  forces  of  nature,"  the  man  should  be 
left  free  tc  choose  the  secular  guidance  and  protec- 
tion he  thinks  best,  and  obtain  it  for  himself  at  the 
most  reasonable  rates,  as  he  now  does  his  religion. 

The  graduated  tax  proposition  is  much  of  the  same 
nature  as  the  "confiscation  of  rent"  or  the  "death 
rate"  tax.  They  only  vary  in  detail  They  are  sim- 
ply endeavors  to  remedy  one  "  compulsory  exchange  " 
by  instituting  another.  For  tliat  rent,  interest,  and 
profits  are  tlie  fruits  of  enforced  exchanges,  must  be 
regarded  as  proven.  Tlirougli  usurped  dominion  of  the 
hmd,  chiss  ])rivil<'ge,  and  private  riglits  cn^atcd  by  ar- 
bitrary will,  barbaric  custom,  and  chicaneries  of 
trade,  rendered  possible  of  achievement  by  "  foster- 


264  SOCIAL    WEALTH. 

ing  legislation  "  and  a  purblind  jurisprudence,  labor 
is  compelled  to  part  with  its  natural  wages,  and 
receive  in  return  whatever  capitalisra  and  the  govern- 
ment vouchsafe  it.  This  state  of  things  our  tax 
reformers  do  not  at  all  expect  to  abolish,  by  taking 
away  these  arbitrary  powers  and  class  privileges,  but 
propose  to  equalize  things  by  another  compulsory 
exchange,  and  so  enable  the  laborers  to  get  square 
with  those  who  have  plundered  and  overreached  them. 
It  will  not  work. 


CHAPTER  X^T:I. 

REFORMS,   NOT   REMEDIES. 

In  the  treatment  of  diseases  of  tlie  liumau  body  it 
is  important  to  know  tbe  real  symptoms,  and  to  have 
an  understanding  of  the  disease  they  indicate.  This 
is  a  prerequisite.  But  a  physician  may  be  able  to 
determine  this  with  a  great  deal  of  accuracy,  and  yet 
be  widely  wrong  with  regard  to  treatment.  He  may 
be  able  even  to  trace  these  symptoms  to  the  disease 
and  the  disease  to  its  inciting  cause,  and  yet  fail  ut- 
terly —  a  thing  which  he  is  pretty  sure  to  do  if 
he  has  more  faith  in  specifics  than  he  has  in  estab- 
lishing sanitary  conditions.  Now  this  is  notably  the 
error  of  labor  and  economic  reformers.  They  give 
an  admirable  diagnosis  of  the  derangements  of  the 
body  politic,  and  trace  them  directly,  at  least,  to  the 
immediate  cause.  But  usually  they  become  infatu- 
ated over  some  specific  remedy.  This  often,  if  not 
always,  takes  the  form  of  some  statutory  provision  or 
positive  institution  Avhich  they  feel  certain  would 
cure  the  disease.  A  prohibitory  or  restrictive  law  is 
the  dream  of  the  reformer  who  seeks  to  make  the 
world  temperate. 

The  financial,  trade,  and  labor  reformer,  each 
seems  to  expect  that  the  enactment  of  a  law  will  cure 
the  disease  whicli  has  its  source  in  tlio  fundanunital 
civil  institution,  and  can  only  bo  eradicated  by  ro- 


266  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

peal  and  not  by  passing  new  statutes.  There  is  a 
singular  similarity  in  the  lines  of  thought  pursued 
and  in  the  profitless  results  which  have  attended  the 
labors  of  such  men.  A  few  illustrations  must  sufiice. 
Henry  C.  Carey  pointed  out  with  great  clearness  some 
of  the  leading  fallacies  of  the  two  schools  of  econom- 
ics in  ignoring  industry.  In  this  respect  his  treat- 
ment of  the  subject  of  trade  was  masterly  and  con- 
vincing, but  w^hen  he  came  to  his  favorite  scheme, 
the  taxation  of  the  products  of  the  industry  of  other 
nations,  his  logic  seemed  to  have  failed  him.  We 
now  see  how  utterly  its  adoption  has  failed  to  relieve 
the  evils  it  was  instituted  to  cure  after  a  quarter  of 
a  century  of  high  tariffs. 

Edward  Kellogg  wrote  a  book  on  "Labor  and 
Other  Capital,"  setting  forth  in  a  most  pithy  and  log- 
ical way  the  evils  of  interest-taking  ;  and  putting  the 
"  just  rate  of  interest "  upon  the  only  logical  basis, 
the  cost  of  making  the  representative  money  and  of 
keeping  it  in  circulation.  But  the  moment  he  at- 
tempted to  give  a  remedy  his  logic  ceased  to  serve 
him,  and  he  put  forth  a  scheme  which,  if  it  could 
have  been  adopted,  instead  of  relieving  financial  dis- 
tress, would  have  made  a  more  complete  monopoly 
of  the  money-making  power  than  ever  existed  before  ; 
would  greatly  have  accelerated  the  monopoly  of  the 
land,  and  given  the  land  monopolist  a  monopoly  of 
the  curiency  also. 

Last  we  mention  Henry  George,  whose  work  on 
the  monopoly  of  tlie  land  is  scientific  as  well  as 
scholarl}'.  As  far  as  the  diagnosis  is  concerned  it  is 
conclusive.     Yet,  afliicted  with  a  "  remedy,"  he  falls 


REMEDIES — FREE  TRADE  IN  LAND.        267 

into  tlie  most  inconsequent  deductions  and  puerile 
speculations. 

We  sliall  give  a  cursory  review  to  these  schemes, 
but  refer  to  them  here  merely  to  show  the  tendency 
of  reformers  to  be  led  astray  by  the  idea  that  some 
contrivance  can  remedy  ills  which  are  deep-seated,  if 
not  constitutional,  and  which  can  only  be  eradicated 
by  recurrence  to  first  principles  and  correction  of  the 
fundamental  error. 

REMEDIES — FREE  TRADE  IN  LAND. 

A  school  of  free-traders,  represented  by  the  Cob- 
den  Club  of  England,  have  given  the  land  question 
marked  attention,  and  appear  to  have  considered 
that  the  removal  of  the  legal  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
easy  transfer  of  the  possession  of  the  land  would 
remedy  the  evils  which  they  acknowledge  to  exist  in 
regard  to  land  monopoly  and  the  abuses  of  landlord- 
ism. Accustomed  to  the  exclusive  dominion  of  their 
land  by  a  hereditary  class,  and  to  the  difficulty  of  ob- 
taining land  in  small  allotments  in  consequence  of 
the  entail  of  estates,  of  the  complicated  legal  forms 
and  expenses  of  conveyance,  it  is  naturally  imagined 
that  relief  from  these  obstructions  would  greatly  fa- 
cilitate the  appropriation  of  the  land  among  those 
who  desire  and  are  best  fitted  to  improve  it. 

But  experience  shows  that  these  facilities  will 
facilitate  the  absorption  of  the  land,  as  well  as  its 
general  im])rovement,  and  thus  give  a  wider  scope  to 
the  monopoly  it  is  intended  to  remedy.  No  obstacle 
in  the  United  States  lias  ever  been  interposed  to  the 
ready  transfer  of  the  land.     In  the  older  states,  it  is 


2G8  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

true,  where  land  lias  attained  fabulous  prices,  as  in 
cities,  there  are  difficulties  in  transfers,  but  only 
through  onerous  legal  charges  in  searching  titles  and 
in  conveyancing ;  but,  in  respect  to  new  lands  and  in 
the  country  generally,  there  are  no  such  expenses  ;  and 
while  the  government  retains  possession  of  consider- 
able tracts,  actual  settlers  may  enter  without  even 
paying  for  the  land  more  than  the  customary  cost  of 
survey  and  making  of  patents.  What  the  "  Cobden 
Club  "  seeks  for  England,  therefore,  has,  almost  from 
the  first,  been  realized  in  this  country.  And  yet,  with 
all  our  immense  acreage  of  cultivable,  timber,  and  min- 
eral lands,  the  results  of  forced  competition  are  taking 
us  with  rapid  strides  in  the  footsteps  of  the  mother 
country.  Have  we  not  already  passed  her  in  the  mad 
race  ?  Our  parvenu  millionaires  equal  her  titled  mag- 
nates in  wealth.  Our  paupers  are  quite  as  numerous 
or  promise  soon  to  become  so.  Our  landlords  are 
as  exacting,  our  rents  are  as  high,  and  our  tenants 
more  submissive.  Our  landed  estates  are  as  practi- 
cally entailed  as  those  in  England,  and  are  being 
constantly  increased  by  purchase,  and  never  dimin- 
ished by  sale,  except  by  lease  on  time.  The  Mosaic 
law  is  wholly  defied  and  set  at  naught  in  buying,  to 
which  our  laws  furnish  every  facility  and  sanction. 
It  is  scrupulously  observed,  however,  in  selling,  and 
none  is  "  sold  forever,"  but  only  for  a  week,  or  a  month, 
or  a  year,  seldom  for  a  term  of  3'ears.  Our  cities  and 
country  towns  are  largely  in  the  possession  of  such 
estates,  and  they  are  all  the  while  increasing  in  size 
and  value  more  than  in  numbers.  When  one  is 
broken  up,  as  happens  in  exceptional  cases,  the  frag- 
ments are  soon  gathered  again  by  the  still  larger  and 


REMEDIES — FREE  TRADE  IN  LAND.        269 

stronger  ones.  Some  of  these  estates  are  older  than 
our  government,  and  many  are  a  century  old.  One  of 
the  largest,  if  not  the  very  largest,  is  regularly  en- 
tailed, despite  the  genius  of  our  institutions,  by  a 
tradition  in  no  wise  confined  to  that  particular  family, 
by  which  the  holder,  while  living,  deeds  the  estate  to 
his  eldest  or  favorite  son,  leaving  annuities  to  the 
other  children.  By  this  means  the  valuation  of  the 
property  is  avoided,  which  could  not  be  done  if  a 
will  were  made  or  the  property  should  be  left  by  an 
intestate ;  it  is  thus  enabled  to  escape,  in  a  degree, 
the  burdens  of  taxation. 

So  much  more  favorable  to  the  establishment  of  large 
estates  are  our  wide  domain,  our  facilities  for  trans- 
fer and  absolute  proprietorship,  that  large  numbers 
of  capitalists  of  England  and  other  European  coun- 
tries are  availing  themselves  of  the  opportunities  to 
do  here  what  would  be  quite  impracticable  for  them 
now  to  do  at  home,  build  up  large  lauded  estates,  and 
where  increasing  population  and  an  enterprising  spirit 
are  sure  to  mass  what  economists  term  the  uncanicd 
increment,  but  what  is  substantially^  the  increment  earned 
by  unpaid  labor.  It  is  estimated  that  one-sixth  of 
the  large  tracts  transferred  in  our  country  for  the 
last  fifteen  years  have  been  purchased  by  English 
capitalists,  and  a  large  proportion  by  other  foreign- 
ers. To  make  trade  in  land  free,  in  the  sense  of  leav- 
ing it  unrestricted  as  to  private  ownership,  can  have 
no  otljer  tendency  than  to  promote  monopoly  and  ul- 
timat(dy  reduce  the  citizen  to  the  condition  of  a  serf- 
like  tenant. 

And  yet  this  remedy  is  good,  in  as  far  as  it  repeals 
laws  which  restrict  the  readv  transfers  of  location  and 


270  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

the  exchange  of  the  improvements  one  may  have 
made  upon  the  land.  The  error  lies  in  recognizing 
any  title  to  land  but  that  of  occupancy  and  labor  ;  for, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  land  is  not  a  subject  of  exchange, 
as  it  can  form  no  equation  with  labor. 

Our  constitution,  then,  as  interpreted  by  our  courts 
and  legislators,  with  its  opportunities  for  enterprise 
and  general  growth  and  development,  still  shelters 
and  encourages  the  growth  of  a  subtler  power  than 
chattelism,  which  once  reclined  under  its  segis.  This 
power  is  by  far  more  dangerous  because  it  pervades 
every  section,  overshadows  every  interest,  invades  the 
home  of  every  toiler,  and  bars  opportunity  to  every 
human  effort.  To  make  trade  in  land  free,  in  the 
capitalistic  sense,  bears  the  same  relation  to  land 
monopoly  that  legalizing  the  slave-trade  once  did  to 
chattel  slavery.  I  quote  from  Professor  J.  E.  Cairnes 
a  paragraph  pertinent  to  this  issue  :  "  In  a  contest 
between  vast  bodies  of  people  so  circumstanced  (des- 
titute of  land)  and  the  owners  of  the  soil,  between  the 
purchasers  without  reserve,  constantly  increasing  in 
numbers,  of  an  indispensable  commodity,  and  the 
monopolist  dealers  in  that  commodity — the  negotia- 
tion could  have  but  one  issue,  that  of  transferring 
to  the  owners  of  the  soil  the  whole  produce,  minus 
what  was  sufficient  to  maintain,  in  the  lowest  state  of 
existence,  the  race  of  cultivators.  This  is  what  has 
happened  wherever  the  owners  of  the  soil,  discarding 
all  considerations  but  those  dictated  by  self-interest, 
have  really  availed  themselves  of  the  full  strength  of 
their  position.  It  is  what  has  happened  under  ra- 
pacious governments  in  Asia  ;  it  is  what  has  hap- 
pened under  rapacious  landlords  in  Ireland  ;    it  is 


REMEDIES — FREE  TRADE  IN  LAND.        271 

what  now  happens  under  the  bourgeois  proprietors 
of  FLanclers  ;  it  is,  in  short,  the  inevitable  result  which 
cannot  but  happen  in  the  great  majority  of  all  so- 
cieties now  existing  on  earth  where  land  is  given  up 
to  be  dealt  with  on  commercial  principles." 

While  the  advocates  of  free  trade  in  land  admit 
that  it  will  result  in  "  unequal  ownership,"  it  is  but 
just  to  say  that  they  readily  acknowledge  a  corre- 
sponding duty  to  labor  or  to  the  people  disinherited 
by  the  process  to  which  they  give  the  title  of  "distri- 
bution of  burdens."     The  necessary  sequence  of  such 
distribution  is  readily  seen  ;  indeed,  has  always  been 
acknowledged,  and  hence  our  poor  rate  system,  our 
almshouses,  and  "  out-door  relief."     Our  education 
in  common  schools,  sustained  by  a  tax  on  property, 
our  governmental  support  of  charities,  etc.,  are   in- 
stances of  its  application.  It  is  only  necessary  to  say 
that  so  far  these  distributions,  however  justified  by 
necessity,  are  far  from  satisfactory,  and  for  this  rea- 
son :    With  the  unequal   ownership   resulting   from 
"unequal   opportunity,"    the   burdens,   however  at- 
tempted to  be  distributed  by  governmental  interven- 
tion, result  in    shi/liiig  rather  than   in  distributing 
them,  so  that  the  burdens,  as  of  taxes  in  every  form, 
fall  ultimately  upon  labor  and  the  industrial  produc- 
of  the  country,  never  upon  the  holder  of  the  land  or 
upon  those  who  are  enabled,  by  treating  laud  as  a 
commodity,  to  obtain  income  without  service.     For 
every  item  of  tax  laid  upon  the  land  is  added  to  the 
rent ;  and  prolits  and  interest  increase  as  burdens  or 
taxes  are  laid  uj)on  property  or  upon  business  of  any 
kind.     As  the  merchant  only  directly  pays  the  dutii'S 
on  imported  goods,  and  adds  them  to  the  price  of  his 


272  SOCIAL   WEALTH. 

wares,  usually  with  an  additional  profit  upon  the 
payment,  so  the  landlord  adds  his  tax  to  his  rent- 
roll  and  the  banker  to  his  discount  charge.  Through 
every  stage  this  shifting  process  goes,  until  it  reaches 
the  worker,  who  has  nothing  but  his  labor  to  sell,  and 
particularly  the  agricultural  laborer,  who,  being  last 
in  the  chain,  finds  it  impossible  to  shift  it  upon  nat- 
ure, as  she  repudiates  the  fraudulent  subterfuge  by 
Avhich  it  is  transmitted  from  the  pretended  burden- 
bearer  through  every  avenue  of  trade  and  industry,  to 
the  remotest  factor,  the  laborer.  And  if  the  burden 
has  become  too  great  to  bear  he  is  crushed  by  it,  for 
he  cannot  shift  it  farther  or  escape  it  in  any  way. 
The  land,  not  being  movable,  cannot  be  transferred  ; 
hence  only  possession  or  occupancy  can  be  exchanged. 
Being  no  product  of  labor,  it  cannot  be  measured  by 
labor  or  have  a  labor  price.  A  money  price  is  there- 
fore fraudulent. 

Land  can  form  no  proper  subject  of  sale,  for  these, 
among  other  reasons  :  1.  It  is  not  a  production  of  hu- 
man labor.  2.  It  is  a  heritage  of  which  no  one  can 
be  rightfully  deprived,  or  even  divest  himself.  3.  It 
is  limited  in  amount  and  cannot  respond  to  demand 
by  increased  supply.  4  It  is  not  subject  to  removal, 
and  hence  cannot  be  transferred.  5.  Ownership  is 
limited  to  occupancy,  and  consequently  ends  with 
the  abandonment  of  the  location,  or  with  the  decease 
of  the  occupant. 

To  all  which  it  is  answered,  that  it  is  true  the  land 
cannot  be  removed,  but  that  property  in  land  is 
merely  a  right  to  occupy  and  receive  the  fruits  of  the 
land,  "  past,  present,  and  to  come,"  "  forever."  To 
which  the  simple  reply  is  that  rights  and  duties  are 


NATIONALIZATION   OF  THE   LAND.  273 

one  and  inseparable,  that  the  right  to  possess  and 
use  can  only  inhere  with  the  duty  of  occupation  and 
use.  Right  inheres  in  person  with  the  duty,  not  alone ; 
nor  can  the  duty  be  done  by  proxy.  The  usufruct  of 
the  soil  is  due  to  and  goes  with  the  labor.  It  be- 
longs to  the  living,  not  to  the  dead  ;  to  the  working, 
not  to  the  idle.  It  is,  therefore,  not  burdens  which  re- 
quire distributing  but  opportunities,  and  unless  these 
are  distributed  the  burdens  cannot  be,  and  the  attempt 
will  ever  result  in  shifting,  not  equalizing  them. 

While,  therefore,  this  school  are  entitled  to  much 
praise  for  their  treatment  of  the  land  question,  par- 
ticularly for  the  book  "  Systems  of  Laud  Tenure  in 
Various  Countries,"  they  have,  by  no  mean§,  solved 
the  land  problem.  To  subject  land  to  the  law  of  the 
market,  or  free  trade,  can  remove  no  radical  evil 
connected  with  its  monopoly.  It  would  be  at  best 
but  a  substitute  for  the  feudal  law  or  for  the  law  of  the 
stronger.  It  might,  by  being  complemented  by  a 
negative  proposition,  attain  to  a  salutary  result  in 
l)romoting  the  object  sought — the  increased  aggre- 
gate production  of  the  laud.  This  would  also  dis- 
pense with  the  cumbersome  machinery  with  which 
the  advocates  of  nationalization  propose  to  accom- 
])lisli  their  aims.  I  refer  to  the  abolition  of  all  laws 
enforcing  tlie  collection  of  rent,  and  the  ])ractical  ap- 
plication of  the  ])rinciple  oi  ''  Misuser'"  and  "Non- 
user,"  in  respect  to  its  occu])ancy  or  ownership. 

NATIONALIZATION   OF  THE   LAND. 

Next  to  Free  Trade  in  hind,  we  may  notice  the  plan 
of  the  Englisli  Land  lie  for  mors  to  makfi  tlie  land  na- 
tional property.     Tliis  is  a  proposition  mu<-h    more 


274  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

radical  than  the  "  Cobdeii  Club  "  lias  ever  proposed, 
and  is  yet  more  in  keeping  with  the  theory  of  land 
ownership  in  England,  where  the  system  of  absolute 
property  in  land  has  never  been  accepted.  Under 
the  feudal  system  the  rule  of  "  free  alienability  "  only 
applied  to  personal  property.  Unlike  the  Roman 
law,  under  which  a  man  was  the  absolute  proprietor 
of  everything  in  his  possession,  including  slaves, 
children,  and  wife,  the  feudal  theory  was  that  abso- 
lute property  in  the  soil  vested  in  the  sovereign  alone 
as  the  representative  of  the  nation.  "  The  territory 
belonged  to  the  nation  as  a  body,  but  the  sovereign 
alone  exercised  all  rights  over  it.  Absolute  property 
in  the  s'oil,  either  the  dominion  of  the  Roman  or  the 
Allod  of  the  German,  is  impossible  to  any  private 
person  in  England  "  (Macleod,  E.  E.,  p.  335). 

To  nationalize  the  land  is,  therefore,  more  in  ac- 
cordance with  their  national  traditions,  and  is  merely 
for  the  nation  to  resume  the  manao-ement  of  its  estate, 
and  reform  its  sj^stem  of  leases  to  individuals.  All 
ownership  of  the  laud  there  is  compatible  with  such 
change.  And  the  only  question  seems  to  be  as  to  the 
method  of  redistributing  the  possession  or  occupancy. 
Mr.  George  is  outspoken  against  any  proposition  to 
remunerate  land  holders  for  the  surrender  of  their 
claims  to  exact  rent  and  retain  control.  His  reason- 
ings are  cogent  and  convincing,  but  not  conclusive  of 
the  matter,  which  will  have  to  be  decided  by  practi- 
cal compromise  and  not  by  abstract  right.  As  be- 
tween the  land  holder  and  the  tenant,  the  point  is 
clear,  and  the  natural  right  of  the  cultivator  to  con- 
trol his  field  or  farm  cannot  be  logically  questioned  ; 
but  the  relation  of  the  state  to  the  landlord  is  such 


NATIONALIZATION   OF  THE  LAND.  275 

that  it  may  justly  consider  whether,  having  so  long 
upheld  an  outgrown  system  and  been  a  party  to  its 
al3uses,  it  may  not  to  some  extent  modify  the  eftects 
of  summary  restitution,  and  bear  a  portion  of  the 
burden  which  may  fall  upon  those  who,  without  fault 
of  their  own,  have  been  taught  to  depend  upon  the 
reception  of  annual  contributions  from  tenants  and 
the  accustomed  incomes  from  such  privilege.  To 
disestablish  the  system  without  compensation  or 
composition,  would  be  to  assume  that  the  landlords 
only  are  responsible  for  the  system  of  tenure,  under 
which  they  exercise  the  rights  of  property  in  the  soil. 
But  this  cannot  be  justly  done.  Society  is  a  growth 
in  which  all  its  members  share  the  responsibility. 
Land  tenure  was  not  invented  and  applied  by  the 
landlord  class.  It  arose  out  of  the  early  assumption 
of  power  by  military  chieftains  and  public  rulers, 
and  grew  according  to  the  state  of  intelligence  and 
social  development  of  the  people.  And  although  it 
can  be  traced  in  instances  to  unscrupulous  usurpa- 
tion, such  usurpation  became  possible  only  among 
rude  and  barbarous  populations,  who  worshiped 
brutal  power,  and  servilely  aided  the  forging  of  tljeir 
own  cliains.  Mr.  George  draws  a  parallel  between 
the  land  liolders  and  the  former  slave-jiolders  of  this 
country,  and  seems  to  imply  that,  as  the  latter  were 
not  reimbursed  for  the  loss  of  their  slaves,  neither 
should  the  land  holders  be  reimbursed  for  the  loss  of 
their  revenues  by  the  surrender  of  tlieir  land  to  gov- 
ernmental control.  ]>ut  the  parallel,  to  be  of  any 
force,  would  require  that  the  land  holders  should  re- 
bel against  tlie  government  which  ]irf)tocts  thorn  in 
their   property    in    land,    as    the    slave-holders    did 


276  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

against  the  government  to  wliich  their  "  institution  " 
owed  its  privilege  to  exist  all.  It  was  the  desire  of 
a  number  of  antislavery  men,  among  whom  was  Ger- 
ritt  Smith,  to  initiate  measures  for  the  abolition  of 
slavery  by  purchase,  on  the  ground  that  the  whole 
country  was  responsible  for  its  existence,  the  North 
as  well  as  the  South,  since  the  former  had  profited  by 
the  slave  trade,  in  which  it  had  built  ujd  many,  at  the 
time,  colossal  fortunes,  and  also  had  largely  shared 
in  the  commerce  and  manufactures  of  the  staple  pro- 
duction of  slave  labor.  He  assisted  Judge  Grimke, 
of  South  Carolina,  to  emancipate  his  slaves,  and 
would  have  largely  contributed  to  effect  so  noble  a 
work,  but  his  purpose  was  frowned  upon  by  Abo- 
litionists generally,  and  was  met  with  resentful  de- 
nunciations by  the  political  agitators  who  claimed  to 
rejDresent  the  South.  Had  his  advice  been  taken,  it 
would  have  saved  the  destruction  of  billions  of  prop- 
erty and  a  million  of  lives,  however  open  to  objection 
it  might  have  been  in  some  respects. 

"We  have  another  institution  valued  at  say  $30,000,- 
000,000,  exclusive  of  improvements,  which  the  stroke 
of  a  pen  could  render  valueless,  without  taking 
a  dollar  from  the  wealth  of  our  country.  Yet,  if 
by  some  compromise  which  should  effectively  abolish 
it,  bloodshed  and  years  of  strife  and  suffering  could 
be  avoided,  it  would  be  wise  to  adopt  it.  I  do  not 
deem  it  essential  to  indorse  any  particular  plan  to 
effect  the  object,  as  I  think  it  inexpedient  to  invoke 
legislation  to  do  anything  but  take  itself  out  of  the 
way  of  social  progress ;  but  I  foresee  that  many  at- 
tempts at  legislation  will  be  made,  in  the  professed 
interest  of  reform,  and  I  can  express  a  hope  that  such 


NATIONALIZATION    OF   THE   LAND.  277 

action  will  accord  with  rational  policy  as  well  as  with 
natural  right. 

For  England,  then,  the  nationalization  of  the  land 
seems  the  orderly  thing  to  be  done,  if  the  state  is  to 
continue  and  government  be  saved  from  anarchy. 
The  original  advocates  of  this  theory  favored  com- 
pensation of  the  land  holders  by  the  government. 
Mr.  Alfred  Russell  Wallace,  whose  "laud  nationaliza- 
tion" I  deeply  regret  my  inability  to  justly  commend, 
or  extensively  quote  as  I  should  desire,  advocates 
the  retention  of  the  incomes  by  the  landlords  for 
their  lives,  or  for  two  or  more  lives  of  persons  now 
li\dng.  If  fault  can  be  found  with  his  plan  or  reason- 
ing, it  is  in  that  he  goes  too  far  in  the  spirit  of  for- 
bearance and  conciliation.  Certainly  no  objection 
can  be  raised  that  his  proposition  is  unjust  to  the 
landlords,  or  in  any  way  inconsistent  with  legal  tra- 
dition, or  wanting  in  any  practical  feature.  But 
when  the  land  has  been  assumed  by  the  nation,  a 
most  important  question  arises  as  by  what  method  it 
shall  be  apportioned  or  redistributed.  Mr.  Wallace 
does  not  propose  that  the  government  shall  l)ecome 
a  superintendent  of  cultivation  and  use.  He  says 
that  "  no  state  managcmenf  will  be  required,  with  its 
inevitable  evils  of  patronage,  waste,  and  favoritism." 

He  has  adopted  a  phrase,  if  not  invented  it,  which 
expresses  to  me  the  true  relation  of  man  to  the  soil. 
It  is  "  occupying  ownershi]),"  and  Avhich  I  will  allow 
him  to  define  in  his  own  words  :  "  Ownership  of  land 
must  not  be  the  same  as  that  of  other  property,  as,  if 
so,  occupying  ownershi})  (which  alone  is  beneficial) 
would  not  be  universally  secured.  A  person  must 
own  land  only  so  long  as  he  occupies  it  personally ; 


278  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

that  is,  lie  must  be  a  perpetual  holder  of  the  land, 
not  its  absolute  owner ;  and  this  implies  some  supe- 
rior of  whom  he  holds  it.  We  thus  come  back  to 
that  feudal  principle  (which  in  theory  still  exists) 
that  everyone  must  hold,  his  land  from  the  state, 
subject  to  whatever  general  laws  and  regulations  are 
made  for  all  land  so  held  "  (p.  193). 

I  can  only  give  place  farther  to  his  summary  of 
the  "necessary  requirements  of  a  complete  solution 
of  the  land  problem  as  enunciated  in  these  pages." 

(1)  "  Landlordism  must  be  replaced  by  occupying 
ownership." 

(2)  "  Tenure  of  the  holder  of  the  land  must  be 
secure  and  permanent,  and  nothing  must  be  per- 
mitted to  interfere  with  his  free  use  of  the  land,  or 
his  certainty  of  his  reaping  all  the  fruits  of  any  labor 
he  may  bestow  upon  it." 

(3)  "  Every  British  subject  may  secure  a  portion 
of  land  for  personal  occupation." 

(4)  "  All  suitable  tracts  of  uninclosed  and  waste 
lands  must  (under  certain  limitations)  be  open  to 
cultivation  by  occupying  owners." 

(5)  "  The  freest  sale  and  transfer  of  every  holder's 
interest  in  his  land  must  be  secured." 

(6)  "  Subletting  must  be  absolutely  prohibited,  and 
mortgages  strictly  limited  "  (p.  192). 

Mr.  Wallace  distinguishes  between  the  value  of 
land  which  is  made  up  of  what  he  terms  "  the  in- 
herent value,"  and  the  additions  to  such  value  made 
"  by  the  labor  or  outlay  of  the  owners  or  occupiers." 
The  inherent  value,  he  thinks,  "  may  conveniently  be- 
come the  property  of  the  state,  which  may  be  remu- 
nerated by  payment  of  a  perpetual  quit  rent'' 


NATIONALIZATION   OF  THE   LAND.  279 

Greatly  as  I  am  disposed  to  follow  up  these  quo- 
tations by  other  extracts,  it  is  diverging  from  the 
purpose  of  this  essay  to  do  so;  for  the  reader  must 
have  discovered  that  in  his  remedy  Mr.  Wallace  has 
laid  aside  the  mantle  of  the  patient  investigator, 
which  he  usually  wears,  and  assumed  the  garb  of  the 
legislator ;  and  instead  of  stating  what  is  in  the  nat- 
ural relation  of  "man  and  the  soil,"  dogmatizes  of 
what  )nust  be.  This  is  the  more  unfortunate  since,  in 
most  instances,  there  seems  no  need  of  it.  His  plan 
for  legislating  occupying  ownership  is  wliolly  unnec- 
essary, as,  in  the  absence  of  statutory  enactments, 
that  is  necessarily  the  extent  of  ownership,  and  the 
enunciation  of  a  natural  principle  of  ownership  is  far 
better  than  any  advocacy  of  a  law  regarding  it  can  be. 

In  this  phrase  and  plan,  however,  Mr.  Wallace  has 
embodied  fully  the  idea  put  forth  a  half  a  century 
ago  by  Spence,  Douglas,  Evans,  YaniVmriiige,  Hunt, 
Hine,  Duganne,  AVindt,  ]Masquerier,  Devyr,  and 
others,  viz.  :  Limitation  to  Property  in  Laud.  It  is 
true  that  the}',  like  Mr.  Wallace  and  Mr.  George,  de- 
pended on  legislation  to  make  good  their  just  and 
humanitary  conceptions,  and  it  seemed  an  arbitrary- 
thing  to  do  to  "make  a  law  "  restricting  oue  iu  thcj 
extent  he  should  follow  his  inclination  to  "  occupy 
the  land."  But  in  the  light  of  more  recent  investi- 
gations into  the  rise  and  origin  of  property  in  land, 
and  its  essenti;il  nature,  it  is  seen  that  it  has  its  nat- 
ural limitations,  andtliatit  is  only  necessary  for  legis- 
lation to  und(j  what  it  has  done  to  bestow  false  rights 
and  to  subject  men  and  things  to  unnatural  and 
therefore  unscientific  categories  to  promote  distribu- 
tive justice. 


280  SOCIAL   WEALTH. 

The  tendency  of  advanced  thought  for  many  years 
has  been  to  the  scientific  method,  and  to  place  less  re- 
liance upon  the  empiricism  which  finds  its  way  into 
political  platforms  or  becomes  petrified  in  legal  form 
and  enactments.  The  land  and  labor  reformers  have, 
to  an  extent,  shared  in  this  advancement,  and  although 
many  still  fruitlessly  follow  the  ignis-fatuus  which 
holds  out  the  hope  of  legislating  justice  into  human 
relations  and  rectifying  wrong  by  use  of  the  ballot, 
the  more  thoughtful  see  that  only  by  exact  knowledge 
of  the  elements  of  industrial  economy  can  they  even 
be  prepared  to  ask,  much  less  to  enforce,  the  sim- 
plest equities. 

To  nationalize  the  land  in  the  sense  of  Mr.  Wallace 
would  be  a  very  different  thing  in  its  effect  ujDon 
labor  from  that  advocated  by  Mr.  George  and  the 
other  and  earlier  English  reformers.  Without  the 
principle  of  occupation  in  ownership,  a  system  of 
leases  from  the  government,  open  to  competition,  and 
unlimited  in  extent,  would  result  no  way  differ- 
ent from  the  present  system  of  deeds  allodial  or  in 
fee  simple.  In  fact,  it  would  greatly  enhance  the 
power  of  capitalism  to  engross  the  control  of  the 
land,  since  it  would  relieve  it  of  the  necessity  of  ap- 
plying large  amounts  in  purchasing  the  land  which 
it  could  secure  the  same  control  of  by  lease. 

In  reviewing  land  nationalization,  the  author  of 
"Progress  and  Povert}^"  cannot  be  overlooked,  for 
we  should  not  be  justified  in  refusing  to  pay  tribute 
to  his  genius  and  the  wonderfully  lucid  diagnosis  of 
the  social  disorder  he  has-  given  us,  however  we  may 
question  the  efficacy  of  the  specific  nostrum  he  has 
compounded  for  a  remedy.     He  has,  I  think,  indu- 


NATIONALIZATION    OF   THE   LAND.  281 

bitably  proved  that  "  the  ownership  of  land  is  the 
great  fundamental  fact  which  ultimately  determines 
the  social,  the  political,  and  consequently  the  intel- 
lectual and  moral  condition  of  a  people." 

But  his  remedy  is  the  English  idea  of  nationaliza- 
tion, plus  the  confiscation  of  rent,  minus  the  fixity  of 
tenure,  and  limitation  by  "  occup3'ing  ownership,"  so 
happily  blended  in  Mr,  Wallace's  proposition.* 

Mankind  have  no  experience  which  justifies  the 


*  Although  Mr.  George  has  justly  placed  land  ownership  at  the  base 
of  tlie  social  and  industrial  fabric,  he  has  utterly  failed  to  apprchoiid  its 
relative  magnitude  as  compared  with  the  other  forms  of  usurpation 
which  have  grown  out  of  it,  and  he  is  wholly  mistaken  as  to  its  increas- 
ing power  of  absorption  over  capitalistic  increase,  as  we  have  seen  in 
comparing  rent  and  interest.  Their  rate  is  the  same,  or  nearly  so.  But 
th«  amounts  drawn  from  the  wages  of  labor  are  constantly  increasing 
on  the  side  of  capitalism.  Indeed,  all  the  rent  of  the  land  is  often  ta.\ed 
away  by  tiie  man  of  money  who  has  a  mortgage  upon  the  premises.  A 
considerable  part  of  the  tribute  paid  ostensibly  for  the  use  of  the  laud  is 
merely  for  the  use  of  the  money  to  purchase  with  or  to  carry  on  the 
farm.  In  times  long  gone  by  the  great  incomes  were  nearly  all  from 
the  land.  Now,  and  the  proportion  is  constantly  increasing,  they  are 
more  largely  derived  from  trade,  manufactures,  and  transportation. 
M.  de  Lavcleye  notes  this  error,  and  says:  "The  value  of  capital  en- 
gaged in  industrial  enterprises  exceeds  that  of  land  itself,  and  its  power 
of  accumulation  is  far  greater  than  that  of  ground  rents.  The  irnmonso 
fortunes  amassed  so  rapidly  in  the  United  Slates,  like  those  of  Mr.  <  !nuld 
and  Mr.  Vanderbilt,  were  the  results  of  railway  speculation,  and  not  of 
the  greater  value  of  land.  We  see,  then,  that  the  increase  of  profits 
and  of  interest  takes  a  much  larger  proportion  of  the  total  value  of  labor, 
and  is  a  more  general  and  powerful  cause  ot  inequality  than  the  incrca.so 
of  rent." 

And  yet  the  moriopf>Iy  of  the  land  is  the  principal  liasis  on  which  all 
of  tiinsn  schcmr-.H  to  derive  profits  depend.  Without  a  power  to  monop- 
olize the  coal  latnls,  our  coal  monopolies  could  not  exist  as  now.  And 
neither  could  the  tratisporUttion  monopolies  thrive  without  private  con- 
trol of  the  road-bed  and  of  the  termini.     The  power  of  the  landlord,  the 


282  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

conclusion  that  taxing  back  land  values  will  reduce 
them,  or  work  any  such  result  as  Mr.  George  as- 
sumes. The  value  of  land  depends  wholly  upon  the 
power  to  monopolize  it,  and  when  such  monopoly  is 
complete,  its  value  embraces  the  entire  product  of  the 
labor  applied  to  it,  minus  the  necessary  amount  reqidred 
to  keep  the  stock  of  labor  supplied  ;  and  until  this  limit 
is  reached  no  taxation  can  destroy  it  or  seriously 
weaken  the  monopoly.  It  would  tend  to  discourage 
rather  than  promote  the  general  desire  to  possess 
land,  while  the  increased  hazard  of  retaining  it  would 
render  the  success  of  the  bold  and  unscruplous  more 
certain.  The  history  of  taxation  in  all  times  shows 
that  speculation  follows  the  channels  of  trade  most 
beset  with  obstructions,  and  avoids  those  which  are 
most  open  to  free  competition.  The  very  opposite, 
therefore,  of  the  assumed  result,  would  most  proba- 
bly take  place,  and  the  Avealthy  and  adventurous 
would  continue  to  absorb  the  possession  of  the  land 
and  have  all  the  more  exclusive  control  from  the 
magnitude  of  the  taxes  they  paid,  and  to  which  the 
poor  or  timid  worker  could  offer  no  serious  competi- 
tion. The  successful  capitalist  would  then,  as  now, 
be  able  to  shift  the  tax  to  shoulders  of  toil,  plus  the 
profits  upon  the  capital  necessary  to  meet  his  dues 
to  the  government,  until  the  utmost  limit  of  endur- 
ance on  the  part  of  labor  had  been  reached. 

It  would  greatly  augment  and   promote  the  reign 

capitalist,  and  the  state  to  tax  and  oppress  labor  coincide  in  aim,  and 
generally  in  measures,  and  though  tliey  may  sometimes  wrangle  with 
each  other  as  to  the  division  of  the  .spoils  and  the  responsibility  for  his 
ruin,  they  are  united  in  regarding  the  laborer  as  a  just  subject  to  be  de- 
luded and  plundered. 


NATIONALIZATION    OF   THE   LAND.  283 

of  capitalism  and  displace  the  iiidepeudent  worker 
who  now  cultivates  bis  own  acres,  but  who  would  be 
then  unable  to  compete  with  organized  capital,  em- 
ploying machinery  and  every  facility  which  ready 
means  Avould  yield,  and  would  be  compelled  to  give 
up  his  holding  and  sink  into  the  ranks  of  the  prole- 
tariat. And  yet  he  might  survive  long  enough  to 
greatly  exhaust  the  soil,  make  bare  the  forests,  and 
reduce  the  productive  power  of  the  land,  driven  by 
his  necessities  for  immediate  returns  to  meet  the 
competition  rent,  which  the  bid  ling  of  the  well-fixed 
capitalist  would  cause  to  be  steadily  raised,  and  to 
pay  interest  on  means  to  prolong  the  hopeless  strug- 
gle. 

With  us,  land  holding  is  but  the  fulcrum  of  the 
capitalistic  lever,  which  is  applied  against  minor 
land  holders  as  well  as  against  labor  and  every  pro- 
fession and  pursuit.  Mr.  George's  plan  is  really  the 
one  in  vogue  to-day,  which  taxes  through  govern- 
ment rates  and  interest  to  capital  the  whole  value  of 
the  land  as  he  proposes.  Thus,  if  a  man  have  a 
house  and  lot,  it  is  taxed  by  the  state  or  county,  the 
corporation  if  in  a  city  or  corporate  village,  so  that 
if  he  is  owing  a  considerable  part  of  its  value  on 
bond  and  mortgage,  he  will  really  have  about  the 
same  rent  to  pay  as  if  he  hired  from  the  principal 
Lmdlord  of  the  place,  who  generally  has  things  "fixed" 
with  the  assessors.  And  having  no  mortgage  on  liis 
premises,  he  is  satisfied  witli  ii  moderate  interest  on 
his  investment.  Thus,  in  our  cities,  the  small  pro- 
prietors are  constantly  being  sold  out  for  taxes  and 
for  foreclosures.  Sale  of  land  for  taxes  is  of  (piite  an 
ordinary  occurrence   in  the  most  populous^citios,  us 


284 


SOCIAL    WEALTH. 


in  the  uninhabited  districts  not  occasionally,  but  con- 
stantly from  year  to  year.  In  some  cities,  as  notably 
in  Jersey  City  and  Elizabeth  in  New  Jersey,  and  in 
many  others  all  over  the  country,  taxes  have  so  in- 
creased as  to  leave  the  holder  no  recourse  but  to  give 
up  his  land  whenever  pressed  for  payment  of  mort- 
gages of  small  amounts. 

As  an  illustration  of  the  above  points,  I  refer  to  a 
communication  in  the  Democrat  and  Chrojiide,  of 
Eochester,  N.  Y.,  of  Feb.  11,  1885.  The  owner,  who 
claims  to  have  been  a  working  man  and  to  have  laid 
the  basis  for  his  possessions  by  hard  work,  attempts 
to  combat  the  idea  that  rents  are  too  higli  and  that 
taxes  are  paid  by  labor,  to  prove  wliicli  he  makes  the 
statement  of  particulars  below  : 


TAXES   AND  NECESSARY   OUTLAYS   FOR   1884. 


County  Tax $101  74 

City         "     447   64 

Sprinkling?  Streets      15  00 
Central  Bridge  Tax     12  86 

Water  Tax 16  74 

No.  av.  Iniprovein"t  378  00 

Sidewalks 18  00 

Sewer 3  77 

Repairs 74  13 

Insurance 119  00 

Privies  Cleaning. .     22  20 

Total,     $1,209  08 


COST. 


$11,326  41 
5,153  32 
2,337  29 
7.000  00 
2,363  93 


Total,  $28,180  95 


RENTS. 


170  &  172  Ex- 
change St.. .$365  00 

1 68  Exchange  St  372  00 

171  "  203  00 
168    North    av.  500  00 

172  &  174  Onta- 
rio St 300  00 


To'al,      1,745  00 
Less  Taxes  and 
Expenses     $1,209  00 


Leav'g  net  rent  $535  92 


This  is  considerably  less  than  two  per  cent,  for 
money  invested  and  nothing  for  time  and  trouble  of 
owner,  and,  as  he  says,  he  may  sometimes  fail  to  col- 


KATIONALIZATION   OF   THE   LAND.  285 

lect  a  portion  of  bis  rent.  Now,  if  on  this  more  than 
twenty-eight  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  property  he 
had  had  a  mortgage  of  ten  thousand,  which  is  a  mod- 
erate average  proportion  on  mortgaged  premises  in 
general,  at  six  per  cent,  interest,  he  would  be  unable 
to  pay  the  interest  from  his  rent  by  more  than  sixty 
dollars,  and  thus  become  indebted  to  the  capitalist, 
whom  Mr.  George  supposes  is  equally  wronged  with 
the  laborer,  by  private  property  in  land.  How  is  it 
possible  not  to  see  that  property  in  land  is  so  far 
from  interfering  with  the  power  of  capital  to  lay  labor 
under  tribute  that  it  is  but  its  chief  instrument  in 
effecting  the  spoil  of  industry  ? 

Although  this  owner  fails  to  make  good  his  asser- 
tion that  somebody  besides  the  laborer  pays  the 
taxes,  since,  if  they  had  not  paid  his  rent,  he  would 
have  had  to  pay  the  taxes  out  of  his  capital,  which 
he  claims  he  produced  by  his  labor,  he  justly,  as  well 
as  naturally,  complains  that  his  property  is  being 
confiscated  by  the  "taxing  power." 

He  avers  what  is  also  declared  in  almost  all  locali- 
ties, even  by  our  legislative  reports,  that  small  prop- 
erty holders  are  assessed  much  higher  in  proportion 
than  large  estates,  and  tliinks  "  if  the  system  of  tax- 
ation continues,  all  small  freeliolders  will  be  made 
paupers,  since  they  will  be  sold  out  to  pay  taxes." 
In  fact,  this  process  is,  and  always  has  been,  going 
on.  At  certain  timos  and  places  it  becomes  more 
conspicuous,  as  in  those  to  which  we  liave  referred, 
but  that  is  its  normal,  not  its  exceptional,  manifesta- 
tion which  steadily  extends  the  power  of  taxing  la- 
bor, both  by  the  government  and  by  the  capitalist. 


CHAPTER  XYin. 

SUGGESTIONS  TO  LEGISLATOES. 

Although  occupying  radical  ground  in  respect  to 
the  origin  and  functions  of  government,  I  neverthe- 
less foresee  that  in  the  condition  of  the  popular 
mind,  uneducated  and  unthinking  as  it  is  on  the 
great  vital  questions  of  social  and  civil  science,  it  is 
likely  in  most  civilized  countries  to  remain  without 
radical  change  for  some  time  to  come.  Mere  forms, 
indeed,  may  change,  but  without  any  essential  im- 
provement. France,  under  a  republic,  is  scarcely 
less  the  victim  of  a  capitalistic  rule  than  when  under 
the  monarchy  or  empire.  In  the  United  States 
there  are  many  respects  in  which  human  rights  and 
interests  are  more  exposed  to  legalized  spoliation 
than  in  England.  Our  tenure  of  land  has  wrought 
as  great  disparities  in  a  century  with  all  our  vast 
domain,  as  a  thousand  years  of  feudal  and  monarch- 
ical institutions  in  thickly  populated  Europe.  But 
it  will  be  long  ere  our  people  will  outgrow  the  child- 
ish civil  and  legal  superstitions  through  which  the 
rule  of  mammon  is  sustained  and  kept  dominant. 

In  pointing  out  some  of  the  ways  and  means  in 
which  government  may  aid  the  cause  of  science  and 
of  justice,  if  I  have  not  the  hope  that  it  will  be  directly 
effective  to  the  desired  end,  I  do  hope  that  by  sug- 
gesting to  the  people  what  the  government  might  do, 

286 


SUGGESTIONS   TO   LEGISLATORS.  287 

it  will  call  their  attention  to  what  it  actually  is  doing 
to  keej)  them  in  ignorant  dependence  and  want,  and 
have  the  effect  to  weaken  the  bonds  by  which  thej 
are  held  in  thraldom,  and  prepare  them  to  dispense 
wdth  such  expensive  luxuries  as  are  the  systems 
which  can  do  nothing  for  the  worker,  while  providing 
every  facility  to  the  Shylocks,  the  gamblers,  and  pub- 
lic plunderers  to  ply  their  trade. 

It  may  serve  the  purpose,  at  any  rate,  of  indicating 
in  a  popular  way  the  course  in  which  industrial  re- 
form is  likely  to  be  developed,  with  or  without  the 
aid  of  ordinary  legislation  : 

First.  By  repealing  all  laws  in  regard  to  laud 
ownership,  leaving  "  occupanc}'  and  use  "  as  it  was 
originally,  the  only  title  to  land.*  To  do  this  while 
laws  are  still  in  some  degree  respected,  will  have  a 
tendency  to  assure  the  common  mind  in  its  reliance 
upon  "statutory  provisions  ;"  but  it  will  at  the  same 
time  greatly  encourage  self-reliance  and  self-help, 
and  tend  to  the  equalization  of  possessions  and  the 
more  exact  remuneration  of  labor.  Being  a  peaceful 
and  civil  reparation,  it  would  doubtless  take  a  com- 
promising or  graduated  form,  something  like  that 
recommended  by  Mr.  Wallace  in  his  scheme  of  na- 
tionalization ;  that  is,  by  a  prospective  application 


*  II  liiis  been  said  that  "possession  is  nine  points  of  tlic  law." 
Now,  if  all  etatiits  laws  in  regard  to  land  were  abroijnted,  possession 
or  occupation  would  constitute  the  ten  points,  and  the  natural  law  of 
proimrty  liecoruf  the  only  one.  To  dispossess  or  evict  one  from  his 
home  and  the  soil  he  has  improved  and  enriched,  would  then  eca.HO 
to  Ik-  a  privatti  rijilit  and  heconu-  a  crime,  beejiusc  a  forceful  assault 
and  outrage,  as  well  as  tlie  fraudulent  ami  wninj^ful  taknig  which  it 
now  is. 


288  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

in  its  operation — those  in  present  legal  possession 
of  land  to  remain  so  during  life  or  for  a  certain  term 
of  years  ;  but  no  titles  created  or  derived  subsequent 
to  such  change  to  extend  beyond  strict  occupancy  and 
use.  Tliis  would  work  no  summary  change,  only  a 
gradual  one,  and  to  which  no  reasonable  objection 
could  be  made,  since  no  one  would  be  dispossessed 
of  any  right  he  now  enjoys,  but  be  only  denied  the 
privilege  of  acquiring  rights  hereafter  which  are- 
detrimental  to  the  enjoyment  of  the  natural  rights  of 
others,  and  to  the  public  welfare.  If  anyone  would 
be  justified  in  complaining,  it  would  be  the  disin- 
herited worker  who,  having  all  his  life  been  kept  out 
of  his  inheritance,  should  have  it  returned  to  him, 
not  only  without  delay,  but  with  restitution  for  past 
wrong.  But  the  truth  is,  that  he  or  his  class  are  to 
a  certain  extent  responsible  for  this  wrong,  for  to 
submit  to  injustice  is  wrong  as  well  as  to  inflict  it. 
Moreover,  if  the  disinherited  class  were  informed  of 
their  rights,  and  disposed  to  enforce  them,  each  dis- 
inherited person  could  at  once  have  his  proper  allot- 
ment of  land,  abundant  for  the  exercise  of  his  labor 
and  the  sustenance  of  himself  and  family. 

But  nothing  seems  more  certain  than  that,  if  at 
present  a  part  of  the  workers  should  assert  their 
natural  right  to  "  occupy  the  land,"  they  would  be 
evicted,  or  driven  off  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet  by 
the  other  part — tlte  landless,  homeless  hirelings  of  a  gov- 
ernment,  run  in  the  interest  of  the  landlord  and  cap- 
italist. The  instances  where  settlers  upon  the  public 
lands,  in  good  faith  and  in  accordance  with  the 
statutory  provisions,  have  been  thus  evicted  at  the 
instance  of  railroad  corporations  or  other  magnates 


CONCLUSION.  305 

yet,  so  infatuated  are  men  witli  the  idea  of  reforming 
things  by  legislation,  and  so  superstitious  are  tliey 
in  their  respect  for  anything  "  enacted  into  law,"  that 
they  give  no  thought  to  the  study  of  nature's  laws, 
and  have  no  respect  for  her  silent,  yet  constant,  in- 
timations. 

Not  daring  to  trust  themselves  in  a  discussion  of 
the  question  of  land  ownership,  our  prominent  econ- 
omists adopt  the  convenient  expedient  of  ignoring  it, 
3-et  still  assuming  that  our  laws  of  tenure  are  but  a 
rescript  of  nature  or  of  the  Divine  Being,  and  that 
all  proceedings  thereunder  must  necessarily  conform 
to  the  law  of  supply  and  demand,  although  well 
knowing  that  land  traffic  is  a  modern  innovation. 
This  seemed  to  make  it  necessary  to  inquire  into  the 
origin  of  wealth,  and  into  the  nature  of  the  factors 
engaged  in  its  production,  also  to  inquire  into  the 
relation  of  the  active  agents  in  production  to  each 
other. 

We  have  endeavored  to  show  that  land  and  labor 
are  tlie  only  factors  in  production,  and  that  men  en- 
gaging in  associative  enterprises  are  co-partners.  In 
doing  this,  we  found  it  necessary  to  expose  the  falla- 
cies so  common  in  the  thoughts  of  business  and  even 
Avorking  men,  tliat  goods,  tools,  animals,  seeds,  or 
commodities  of  any  kind,  or  under  any  circumstances, 
are  agents  in  production,  or  have  any  power  in  them- 
selves to  increase  their  economic  values.  HfMi('(^  T 
had  to  considor  the  ratios  of  exchange,  service,  and 
utility.  And  fcom  tin's  it  a])pf';irs  tliat  land  and  labor 
can  havo  no  (xcliMngcibli'  7;itio  to  their  own  ])rofln('tH; 
that  lab< II-,  divorced  fiom,  or  disinherited,  of  the  l.md, 
is  only  an  abstraction  without  productive  power,  and 


306  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

that  land  witlioiit  the  application  of  labor  is  unpro- 
ductive of  economic  values.  We  have  seen  that  the 
whole  device  of  income  without  work  is  fraudulent 
and  without  the  least  justification  in  ethics  or  eco- 
nomics ;  that  it  vitiates  all  exchanges  with  which  it 
is  connected,  since  what  is  produced  by  labor  cannot 
be  brought  into  any  exchangeable  relation  whatever 
with  that  which  it  requires  no  labor  to  produce ;  that 
all  exchanges  which  involve  pure  profit,  rent,  and 
interest,  to  the  extent  that  they  involve  them  are  no 
economic  exchanges  whatever,  but  the  fraudulent  or 
hazardous  obtaining  of  something  for  nothinfr.     And 

o  o  o 

I  do  not  flatter  myself,  I  think,  in  supposing  I  have 
made  these  points  tolerably  plain. 

What  alone  causes  me  anxiety  is  that  the  world, 
sunk  in  its  worship  of  the  power  which  large  fortunes 
give,  and  in  the  unfraternal  struggle  which  is  begot- 
ten of  the  operation  of  the  very  injustices  exposed, 
shall  give  little  consideration  to  those  showings,  and 
little  attention  to  the  facts  which  must  be  as  apparent 
to  all  as  to  me.  But  reflections  of  this  kind  have  not 
deterred  me  from  the  work  which  seemed  necessary 
to  be  done. 

Many  questions  which  appear  urgent  and  of  im- 
portance to  the  time,  as  the  question  of  the  currency, 
etc.,  I  have  barely  noticed,  not  because  they  are  of 
little  account,  or  because  their  solution  can  safely  be 
deferred,  but  because  they  have  their  special  cham- 
pions, and  have  already  been  treated  at  length,  if  not 
exhaustively.  Even  the  evils  of  our  land  system  I 
have  not  dwelt  upon,  as  they  have  beeii  set  forth 
with  much  force  by  the  early  reformers,  and  as  well 
by  Mr.  George  and  Mr.  Wallace  in  a  most  impres- 


CONCLUSION.  307 

sive  manner.  Tliey  are  apparent  enougli  everywhere, 
if  people  will  think,  and  their  deleterious  influence 
surrounds  every  city,  town,  or  hamlet  of  our  land, 
and  presses  with  fearful  weight  upon  the  child  of  toil. 
To  sympathy  and  sentiment  I  have  made  no  appeal, 
Imt  to  the  cool  judgment  and  clear  sense  of  riglit 
which  cannot  be  wholly  wanting  among  mankind.  I 
have  sought  to  avoid  denunciation  of  persons  or  of 
classes.  Mankind  are  much  the  same  in  all  relations 
and  conditions,  and  if  the  position  of  the  individual, 
master,  and  slave  were  reversed,  it  would  not  im- 
prove the  real  character  of  the  institution.  The 
wage  worker  of  yesterday  becomes  the  foreman,  boss, 
or  employer  of  to-day,  and  carries  the  same  heavy 
hand  upon  those  beneath  his  authority  as  he  has 
experienced  from  those  in  authority  over  him.  The 
victim  of  usmy,  or  the  tenant  impoverished  by  rent, 
no  sooner  changes  position  than  he  becomes  a  usurer 
or  rent-taker,  and  thinks  the  system  a  ver}'-  good  one 
which  enables  him  to  receive  the  wages  for  which 
another  works ;  and  thus  a  moral  support  is  given  to 
these  customs  and  institutions  which  alone  contin- 
ues them  in  power. 

What  requires  to  be  done,  then,  is  not  the  inven- 
tion of  some  patent  scheme  or  sovereign  remedy,  but 
the  diftusion  of  truth  upon  thes.'  fundamental  prin- 
cijjles  among  both  ricli  and  ])oo7-,  tlio  intellectual 
professor  and  the  plodding  toiler.  Our  system  of 
education  is  deo])ly  in  fault.  To  be  educated  in  re- 
spect to  one's  lif(»  pursuit  is  one's  first  need,  since  to 
provide  for  the  wants  of  11  f(^  is  the  ])rimary  duty  of 
each.  Ilndci'  ])rivate  conliol  cf  natiiiv  in  lier  iields, 
forests,  and  stvcjinis,  nnd  the  nnccpial  division  result- 


308  SOCIAL  WEALTH. 

inf;  therefrom,  the  children  of  the  poor  are  kept  in 
drudgery  or  tanght  worse  than  useless  lessons, 
wholly  removed,  as  they  mainly  are,  from  any  appli- 
cation to  industrial  life.  For  practically,  by  exam- 
ple, they  are  taught  to  despise  and  shirk  honest 
labor,  and  to  think  that  riches  and  enjoyment  flow 
from  a  great  variety  of  circumstances  rather  than 
from  patient  toil.  The  quick-witted  child  thus  early 
becomes  a  very  "  prince  of  economists."  To  get 
something  for  nothing  becomes  a  habit  and  a  cultus, 
which,  as  he  grows  in  years,  he  tries  to  reduce  to  an 
art.  If  by  shrewd  device  or  subtle  pretense  he  can 
wholly  escape  work,  and  saddle  the  expense  of  life 
upon  others,  he  learns  that  under  the  teachings  of 
our  "  exact  economy  "  and  "  reformed  theology  "  he 
will  be  entitled  to  social  distinction  and  resjDect,  and 
to  have  his  position  defended  by  learned  jDrofessor 
and  titled  dignitary,  both  secular  and  religious. 

Tlius,  while  the  natural  wants  of  men  are  few,  and 
could  readily  be  supplied  by  a  moderate  application 
of  labor,  the  desire  to  obtain  artificial  gratifications 
is  without  end,  and  the  sheerest  caprice  dominates 
the  natural  appetites  where  cost  of  production  no 
longer  serves  as  a  check  to  inordinate  desire ;  and  so 
unremitting  toil  is  thrown  upon  others.  "  Thus,  by 
the  treachery  of  one  part  of  society  in  avoiding  their 
share  of  the  work,  by  their  tyranny  in  increasing  the 
burthen  of  the  world,  an  evil  is  produced  quite  un- 
known in  simpler  states  of  life,  and  a  man  of  but 
common  capacities,  not  born  to  wealth,  in  order  to 
secure  a  subsistence  for  himself  and  family,  must 
work  with  his  hands  so  large  a  part  of  his  time  that 


CONCLUSION.  309 

nothing  is  left  for  intellectual,  moral,  aesthetic,  and 
religious  improvement." — Theodore  Paeker. 

The  first  requisite  of  education  is  to  teach  the 
child  practically,  as  well  as  theoretically,  that  the 
supply  of  human  wants  are  supplied  never  otherwise 
than  by  human  toil ;  that  labor  is  to  be  honored  and 
followed,  as  a  means  of  enjoyment  as  well  as  duty, 
and  that  to  endeavor  to  shirk  our  proper  share  of  it 
is  the  most  childish  and  mean  thing  one  can  possibly 
do,  and  is  the  one  weakness  we  should  seek  to  cor- 
rect in  ourselves,  or  discourage  in  others.  For  even 
if  labor  were  a  curse  instead  of  the  prime  source  of  all 
intelligent  enjoyment,  how  unmanly  and  uncultured 
is  that  desire  which  would  seek  to  escape  it  and  let 
it  fall  on  those  more  feeble  and  already  overbur- 
dened !  No  system  of  teaching,  it  seems  to  me,  has 
ever  been  so  well  calculated  to  arrest  the  develop- 
ment of  the  child,  in  its  stage  of  childish  imbecility 
and  selfishness,  as  the  comfortable  theory  that  every- 
thing is  right  in  trade,  and  that  "the  law  of  the 
market"  cancels  all  moral  and  humanitary  consider- 
ations. It  is  quite  plain  to  me  that  popular  educa- 
tion is  doing  little  to  remedy  the  wrongs  under  Avhich 
mankind  are  suffering.  Its  text-books  are  emascu- 
lated of  all  manly  thought  upon  the  great  question 
of  work  and  its  awards.  No  references  to  the  "  pecu- 
liar institution  "  in  the  days  of  chattel  slavery  Avere 
more  studiously  shunned,  nor  was  its  nature  more  sys- 
tematically misrepresented,  than  is  now  practiced  in 
our  institutions  of  learning,  our  pulpits,  and  puldic 
press,  upon  tiiis  ([uostion  of  labor  and  man's  riglit  to 
the  land  and  to  the  products  begotten  of  liis  toil. 
Exactness  and  honesty,  without  which  advancement 


310  SOCUL  WEALTH. 

in  any  science  is  impossible,  are  the  main  needs  in 
the  requisite  social  edncation.  Lacking  these,  there 
is  little  hope  of  attaining  personal  security  or  social 
development. 

Of  the  criticisms  of  the  j)aid  or  truckling  advocate 
I  have  no  fear  or  care.  Even  the  toilers  whose 
just  claims  onl}^  I  have  endeavored  to  present  are 
perchance  as  likely  to  censure  as  to  praise,  and 
to  the  self-seeker  there  will  be  found  little  in 
these  pages  to  interest  or  entertain.  Entering 
on  my  seventieth  year,  I  have  no  ambition  for 
place  or  public  recognition.  Neither  expectation  of 
gain  or  popular  applause  has  stimulated  me  to  this 
work,  but  simply  a  desire  to  arrive  at  truth  upon  a 
subject  of  the  highest  importance  to  human  well- 
being  which  can  engage  the  scientific  mind.  That  I 
have  been  unable  "  to  complete  the  science  of  eco- 
nomics "  should  not  be  a  matter  of  surprise,  since  no 
true  science  is  ever  completed.  Precisely  the  nature 
and  extent  of  my  contribution  will  only  be  generally 
seen  when  that  science  shall  have  become  other  than 
the  empirical  thing  it  now  is,  and  be  pursued  for 
nobler  aims  than  the  buttressing  of  class  preroga- 
tives, or  the  forming  of  a  base  for  partisan  supremacy 
or  the  application  of  doubtful  remedies.  Let  the 
truth  be  sought.  It  only  can  make  free,  and  liberty 
is  the  very  life  of  human  progress. 


APPENDIX. 


SUMMARY     OF     DEFINITIONS. 

To  enable  the  ovdinaiy  reader  to  draw  ready  com- 
parisons between  the  hitest  school  of  economists  and 
thelsonomic  conclusions  arrived  at  in  Social  AVealtii, 
I  give  a  summary  of  each.  The  first,  by  Mr.  Mac- 
leod,  from  his  "  Elements  of  Economics,"  pp.  220, 
221,  222 ;  the  second,  as  they  are  shown  in  our  pres- 
ent investigation. 

Economics,  or  the  Science  of  Wealth,  is  the  science 
which  treats  of  tlie  laws  which  govern  the  relations 
of  Exchangeable  Quantities. 

We.vlth  is  anything  whatever  whose  value  can  be 
measured  in  Money ;  consists  exclusively  of  Ex- 
changeable Rights. 

Pkopehty  is  not  a  thing,  but  a  Right — is  (Mjuivah-iit 
to  Al)solute  Ownership. 

JuiiisruuDENCE  is  the  Science  of  Rights. 

Economics  is  the  science  of  the  Exchange  of 
Rights. 

Economic  Quantities  are  : 

1.  Rights  to  Material  Things  ; 

2.  Rights  to  Labor  or  Service  ; 

3.  Rights   to   things  io  he  acquired   at  a  future 
time — incorporeal  ])roperty. 

Value. — Any  other  economic  quantity  for  wliic^h  a 
thin''  will  exchange. 

Money  is  anything  whatever  wliich  a  debtor  can 
compel  a  creditor  t<j  take;  in  discharge  of  a  debt ;  also 
called  Le(jul  Tender. 


•A  1 


312  APPENDIX. 

Credit  is  a  right  of  action  against  a  person  to  pay 
or  do  something. 

Debt  is  used  indiscriminately  to  mean  the  right 
to  compel  payment,  and  also  the  Dutij  to  pay  or  do  a 
thing. 

Barter  is  the  direct  exchange  of  one  commodity 
for  another. 

Sale,  or  Circulation,  is  where  commodities  are 
exchanged  for  Money  or  Credit. 

To  Produce  is  toolfer  any  Economic  quantity  for 
sale  or  Exchange. 

The  Producer  is  the  seller. 

Production  is  the  offering  any  Economic  Quantity 
for  sale  or  Exchange. 

To  Consume  is  to  purchase  any  Economic  Quantity. 

The  Consumer  is  the  buyer. 

Consumption  is  the  Purchase  of  any  Economic 
Quantity. 

Supply  is  the  Quantity  of  anything  offered  for 
sale. 

Demand  means  the  Desire  and  the  Power  to  piir- 
chase  anything,  and  so  may  be  used  to  mean  the 
Quantity  of  anything  which  is  given  in  exchange  for 
anything  else. 

Cost  of  Production  is  the  cost  of  placing  anything 
in  the  place  where  offered  for  sale. 

Profit  is  the  difference  between  the  cost  of  Pro- 
duction of  anything  and  its  value,  or  the  Quantity  of 
anything  it  can  purchase. 

Gain. — Excess  of  Value  over  cost  of  Production. 

Loss  is  the  value  less  than  cost  of  Production. 

Rate  of  Profit  is  the  Amount  of  profit  made  in 
some  given  time. 

Productive  Labor  leaves  a  profit  after  cost  of  Pro- 
duction. 

UNPRODUCTrv^E  Labor  leaves  no  profit  after  defray- 
ing Cost  of  Production. 

Capital  is  any  Economic  Quantity  used  for  the 
purpose  of  Profit, 


APPENDIX.  313 

Fixed  Capital  remains  in  the  possession  of  the 
Capitalist,  and  from  which  he  derives  a  Kevenue  by 
its  use. 

Floating,  or  Circulating  Capital,  is  that  which  he 
parts  with,  and  whose  value  is  restored  to  him  in 
the  price  of  the  Product. 

Eent  means  Eevenue,  or  an  Annuity. 

Hi]{E  means  the  sum  paid  for  a  thing  on  a  single 
occasion. 

Payment. — Whatever  is  received  in  exchange  for 
anytliing  else. 

Discharge  is  equivalent  to  payment. 

Satisfaction  is  anything  which  is  received  as  final 
Discharge  and  closing  of  any  transaction. 

ISONOMIC   definitions. 

Capital. — The  chief  source  of  Increase.  It  is  divi- 
ded into  natural  and  artificial. 

Natural  Capital. — Tlie  land  and  the  labor.  There 
is  in  Nature  no  other  source  of  increase. 

Artificial,  or  Institutional  Capital. — Certain  private 
rights  created  by  custom,  statute  law,  or  by  the  arbi- 
trary will  of  some  conqueror  or  ruler,  Avhicli  enable 
one  to  force  an  Exchange  or  command  labor  witliout 
equitable  return,  through  usurped  dominion  of  the 
land,  ownershi})  of  the  person,  or  other  civil  device. 

Capitalism. — That  system  of  social  or  industrial 
institutions  by  which  an  exploiteur  is  enabled  to  ap- 
propriate to  himself  the  increase  resulting  from  in- 
dustr}',  which  belongs,  and  which  would  otherwise 
go,  to  the  laborer,  or  be  returned  to  tlui  land.  An  ab- 
normal relation  f)f  labor  to  commerce,  which  subjects 
labor  to  the  control  of  an  owner  of  the  land,  or  of 
any  property  or  goods  for  which  tlic  laii<l  will  ex- 
change. 

Capitalist. — One  who  becomes  clothed  w  ith  legal 
rights  over  the  land,  or  over  the  man,  whicli  autlior- 
ize  him  to  take  from  the  laborcn*  or  fr(jm  the  land 


314  APPENDIX. 

the  fruits  of  industry,  to  the  production  of  which  he 
has  not  coutributed. 

Competition. — "A  seeking  together."  It  is/ree  or 
compuhory,  mutual  or  antagonistic.  It  may  be  said 
to  be  free  when  natural  opportunities  are  enjoyed, 
and  mutual  when  abundance  of  the  thing  sought  is 
attainable.  It  then  relates  only  to  the  degree  of  suc- 
cess of  each. 

Conservation  of  Wealth. — The  act  by  which  com- 
modities or  goods  have  their  exchangeable  values 
retained  through  change  of  form  or  other  means ;  con- 
verting them  into  money  or  parting  with  them  on 
credit  is  a  common  means. 

Co-operation. — Operating  together  as  co-partners, 
who  stand  in  equitable  relation  to  each  other.  It  is 
contrasted  with  contest,  as  of  two  hostile  armies ;  but 
allied  armies  co-operate  with  each  other ;  also  with 
competition  in  its  forced  or  destructive  sense.  It  is 
not  inconsistent  with  emulation  or  free  competition 
in  exchange.  One  who  applies  his  labor  to  a  specific 
industry,  whether  combined  with  others  or  otherwise, 
and  oifers  his  product  in  itoncst  exchange,  is  a  co-oper- 
ator in  the  best  sense,  uidustrially  and  economically. 

Credit  or  Debt.  —  An  incompleted  exchange,  in 
which  one  party  has  relinquished,  and  the  other 
party  has  obtained,  possession  of  any  goods,  while 
the  ownership  of  the  goods  or  things  for  wliicli  they 
are,  or  are  to  be,  exchanged,  remains  in  the  hands  of 
second  party.  As  an  act  of  conservation,  which  it 
usually  is,  and  in  which  alone  it  can  have  any  recog- 
nition in  exact  economics,  there  is  in  equity  service 
done  the  creditor,  not  the  debtor. 

Demand  and  Supply. — A  phrase  to  indicate  a  short 
or  excessive  production  or  use  of  a  thing  of  com- 
merce at  any  given  time  and  place.  Its  operation 
under  freedom  is  to  render  stable  the  "  ratio  of  ex- 
change." 

Economy. — The  science  which  treats  of  the  produc- 
tion and  uses  of  goods.     It  has  three  divisions  : 


APPENDIX.  316 

Personal  Economy  treats  of  the  prudent  use  of  one's 
force  in  procuring  goods,  and  tlie  frugal  use  or  con- 
sumption of  the  same. 

Social  Ecohomii  treats  of  the  productive  agencies  of 
a  society  or  community',  and  of  the  division  and  ex- 
change of  ])roducts. 

Political  Econoinii  treats  of  the  rehition  of  the  e:ov- 
ernment  or  state  to  industry  and  commerce,  and  of 
the  methods  of  raising  and  expending  its  revenues. 

Inckease,  natural. — The  productions  of  land  and 

labor  in  excess  of  consumption 
in  a  completed  period. 

,  capitalistic. — Accumulations  of  wealth 

from  arbitrar}'  control  of  land  or  of  labor,  without 
equitable  compensation  or  return. 

Increment,  unearned. — Additions  of  price  to  real 
and  other  estate,  for  which  no  service  has  been  ren- 
dered ;  but  it  is  not  therefore  to  be  understood  that 
this  increase  is  not  taxed  back  upon  labor — one  of 
the  main  abutments  of  the  capitalistic  theory  of  pro- 
duction and  exchange. 

Interest. — A  fraudulent  claim  of  one  party  to  an 
exchange,  by  which  a  charge  is  made  for  the  "tliglit 
of  time  "  between  the  inception  and  the  completion 
of  an  exchange  ;  or  it  is  a  charge  for  having  a  value 
conserved,  and  for  which  service  com])cnsation  is 
due,  not  to  the  credit(n-,  but  in  the  debtor. 

Money. — A  commodity,  or  the  representative  of  a 
commodity,  accepted  by  or  forced  upon  the  "  com- 
mon consent,"  as  an  invariable  ratio  and  exchange 
tally. 

Profit. — A  false  entry  in  the  business  ledger,  in 
which  a  dealer  charges  twice  for  the  samc^  thing. 
Firstly,  for  the  service  he  has  rendered  ;  and,  sec- 
ondlyi  for  a  profit  on  tlie  goods  he  has  sold  his  cus- 
tomer. The  charge  which  compensates  all  the  service 
rendered  is  not  ])rofit,  nor  is  such  increase  of  ])rice 
as  may  be  refjuirfd  to  average  risks,  and  guard 
against  losses  unavoidable  to  the  business. 


316  APPENDIX. 

Katio.  of  Utility.  —  The  relative  proportion  of 
services  or  goods  to  effect  useful  ends  in  the  suste- 
nance of  human  life,  and  in  the  promotion  of  human 
enjoyment.     It  is  constant  or  invariable. 

Eatio  of  Service.  —  The  relative  proportion  in 
which  different  services,  as  measured  by  their  con- 
tinuance in  time,  procure  or  produce  useful  things, 
or  effect  useful  ends. 

Eatio  of  Exchange. — The  relative  proportion  in 
which  one  service  or  commodity  will  exchange  for 
another  service  or  commodity  at  a  given  time  and 
place.  It  is  an  ever -varying  ratio,  whose  mean  is  the 
Eatio  of  Service. 

Eent. — "An  immoral  tax;"  a  tribute  for  privilege 
to  be,  to  labor,  or  to  exercise  the  right  and  duty  of 
Use.  It  is  similar  to  profit  and  interest,  and  consti- 
tutes the  basis  on  which  they  both  depend. 

Usury. — The  same  as  interest.  The  law  which  at- 
tempts to  distinguish  between  them  has  no  ethical, 
economic,  or  logical  basis ;  one,  or  one  hundred  per 
cent,  being  the  same  in  nature,  and  only  differing  in 
degree. 

Value. — An  estimated  ratio  which  one  thing  or 
service  bears  to  another  thing  or  service.  In  rela- 
tion to  Money,  it  is  Price. 


INDEX. 


Agrarian  Laws,  146;  of  the  kings 
and  consuls,  147;  how  they  could 
have  been  made  effective,  149 :  as 
regarded  by  the  aristocracy  of 
Rome.  152,  153. 

Arnold,  Tiiomas.  on  the  agrarian 
law,  14G. 

Atkinson,  Edward,  on  inequality  of 
wages,  note  to,  11 ;  contracts 
under  lien  laws  at  the  South,  207. 

Balance  of  Trade,  32-38 ;  should 
have  embraced  fertilizers  instead 
of  gold,  245. 

Blackstone,  titles  to  land,  124;  nat- 
ure of  law,  127. 

Bounty  of  nature,  power  to  tax  de- 
rived from,  by  Mr.  Clark,  258; 
is,  for  those  who  use  it,  a  mere 
metiiphysical  term,  259;  named 
by  Aristotle,  2G0;  useless  as  a 
scientific  term,  2G0;  shared  by 
the  pest  and  para.sitc  as  well  as 
by  man,  261. 

Cairxes,  J.  E  ,  on  free  trade  in 
land,  270. 

Calhoun,  J.  C,  the  foremost  econo- 
mist in  public  life  of  his  time, 
deemed  slavery  the  true  relation 
of  capital  and  laljor,  HO. 

CapiUil,  artilicial,  suljject  to  stea<ly 
loss  or  decrease,  169;  land  and 
labr)r  the  only,  170-174. 

Capitalism,  its  origin,  40;  stealthy 
ab.Horptioii  of  power,  41,  42,  171 ; 
its  logical  aim  the  subjection  of 
the  laud  and  of  the  people,  249. 

Capit;ilist  and  Socialist,  issue  be- 
tween, 174,  175. 

Carey,  Henry  C,  rcpreseiilalivc  of 


a  retrograde  school,  38,  39 ; 
clearly  pointed  out  the  errors  of 
the  French  and  Kiiglisli  schools, 
but  offered  a  worthless  substi- 
tute, 266. 

Chattelisra,  effect  on  industry,  25; 
based  on  pretended  contract,  its 
only  justification,  26. 

Clarke,  Edward  H.  G.,  on  higher 
law  of  property  and  death-rate 
tax,  192,  193;  chides  Mr.  George, 
and  puts  him  ni  a  dilemma,  258, 
25»;  on  the  "  unconscious  "  and 
bounty  of  nature,  259,  260 ;  at- 
tempt to  correct  nature's  mis- 
ttikes,  262. 

Commoners,  an  abuse  of  the  Com- 
munistic idea,  143. 

Cobden  Club,  and  free  trade  in  land, 
267  ;  credit  to,  273. 

Comte,  Charles,  on  right  to  land, 
125. 

Comte,  Auguste,  moralization  of 
wealth,  297. 

Contract,  slavery  the  primitive,  26; 
serfs,-  slaves,  or  disitdierited 
workers  cannot  make,  28  ;  ves- 
tige in  our  Constitution,  121, 122; 
law  of,  205;  debt,  206;  in  lien 
law,  207  ;  wlien  not  binding,  209- 

.  211;  in  interest  bearing  debt, 
214;  for  wages  doubly  invalid, 
297. 

Cooley,  T.  M.,  partnership  of  em- 
ployees, 194. 

Co-openitiuii,  present  in  all  com- 
buied  labor,  120;  what,iin(i  what 
not,  201,  202;  jjresi'iit  in  pro- 
duction, but  absent  in  C4i|>ilalistiu 
division,  20.'{. 

Cullom,    Sir   John,    on   wages    in 
fourteenth  century,  29. 
8'7 


318 


INDEX. 


Daguerre,  the  inventor,   86;   his 

discovery  not  patented  by  him, 

88. 
Division,  system  of,  pnictically  the 

same  under  slavery,  serfdom,  and 

capitidism,  29,  30. 

Economics,  abraneh  of  social  econ- 
omy, 18;  now  pivoted  on  "sup- 
ply and  demand,"  19;  the  sphere 
of,  constantly  narrowing,  31; 
definition  of.  by  latest  school,  oG. 

Enclosure  acts,  131. 

Exchange,  as  social,  not  a  private 
interest,  52;  ratio  in,  235;  of 
material  elements,  244. 

Faxcher,  Julius,  on  Russian  agra- 
rian legislation,  140,  142. 

Fencing  of  public  lands,  144. 

Feudal  system  the  successor  of 
chattclism ;  its  effect  on  indus- 
trv,  27,  28;  growth,  134;  change, 
135. 

George,  Hexry,  mistaken  as  to 
rent  and  interest,  61,  64,  65 ; 
special  plea  for  interest,  65,  66, 
67 ;  builds  on  a  buttress  dis- 
mantled by  himself,  68  ;  attacks 
an  obsolete  view  of  the  wages 
fund,  98;  instance  of  San  Joa- 
quin Valley,  100;  confusion  in 
regard  to  productive  factors,  191- 
193;  reduces  his  own  scheme  to 
an  absurdity,  261 ;  opposes  re- 
nunicration  to  land  holders,  274. 

Golden  Rule  quoted  to  favor  prop- 
erty, but  not  man,  by  economists 
and  jurists,  53. 

Gibbon,  Edward,  on  private  prop- 
erty and  growth  of  monopoly, 
156. 

H.VLLAii,  on  comparative  wages 
under  feudalism  and  capitalism, 
28;   note  to,  302. 

Hunt,  John  U.,  industry  the  base 
of  true  honesty  and  worship, 
note  to,  10;  on  law  of  u.se,  209; 
note ;  one  of  tlie  early  reformers, 


299;  on  working  of  the  feudal 
system,  note  to,  302. 

Individualism  as  a  divergent  force, 
40;  compatible  with  Socialism,  ib. 

Industry,  tendency  to  organize 
under  civil  rule,  8;  analysis  of 
its  elements  demanded,  9;  the 
fundamental  social  problem,  10; 
an  exact  science  of,  237. 

Interest,  how  derived,  48 ;  synony- 
mous with  rent  and  profit,  54; 
unjust  and  irrational,  56,  57,  58; 
relation  to  land  tenure  and  pay- 
ment in  kind,  60;  a  geometrical 
ratio,  62  sources  from  which 
onty  it  is  paid,  63;  however 
shifted,  falls  on  labor  only,  225. 

Isonomics,  the  basis  of  the  French 
school,  36. 

Julian,  Geo.  "W.,  on  corruption  of 
Department  of  the  Interior,  145. 

Jubilee,  Hebrew,  set  men  and  the 
land  free,  152. 

Kellogg,  Edward,  his  valuable 
analysis,  but  futile  remedy,  266. 

Labor,  early  subjection  of,  8 ;  ardu- 
ous, the  poorest  paid,  1 1 ;  always 
produces  a  change  in  supply  and 
demand,  16;  not  sold,  but  only 
the  thing  in  which  it  is  con- 
creted, 21;  with  land  the  oidy 
capital,  171 ;  the  only  stable  ra- 
tio in  exchange,  241,  243. 

Land,  what  the  term  embraces,  124; 
and  labor  alwaj's  capital,  never 
commodities,    171;    traffic  in,  a 
sale  of  kingly  prerogatives,  159j^ 
return   to   the  land,    238 ;  "Treel 
trade  in,  267-270;   not  a  proper  | 
subject  of  sale,  272:  nationaliza-  I 
tion,    273-280;    suited    to    tradi-!/ 
tions  of  Eii<>lish  law,  277;  need-/ 
ed  by  all,  291. 

Land  Ownership,  importance  of  the 
question  of,  and   original   right,  i, 
1 24. 

Land  Reformers,  the  early,  279.  ^'i 


INDEX. 


319 


Laveleye.  Emile,  original  tenure  of 
land,  151;  compares  profits  and 
interest  with  rent,  note  to,  281. 

Locke,  Jolin,  riglit  to  laud,  125; 
right  of  property,  153. 

Mac.\ulat,  on  crown  grants,  142. 

Macleod,  H.  D.,  purpose  of  his 
book,  13;  diamond  instance,  14; 
triumph  over  Adam  Sniitli.  15; 
crejites  wealth  out  of  nothing, 
16;  defines  property,  17;  leader 
of  the  later  school,  36;  unilat- 
eral contract,  and  change  from 
feudalism.  125;  on  land  system 
of  Kome.  149  :  absurd  classifica- 
tion, 173;  on  satisfaction.  208; 
three  sources  of  wealth,  189; 
economic  prestidigitation,  190 ; 
on  absolute  property  in  land,  274. 

Maine,  Henry  Simmer,  origin  of  the 
market,  43,  44;  trade  in  land,  45  ; 
theories  of  rent,  46 ;  origin  of 
property  in  land,  126. 

Mallock,  W.  H.,  cliampions  the  ob- 
solete theory  of  the  wages  fund, 
96;  lectures  Mr.  George,  97; 
lame  defen.se  of  landlordi.<m,  100; 
unconscious  arraignment  of  cap- 
italism, 101;  indorses  M;illhus, 
162;  right  t<i  land  and  to  expel 
the  landless,  166;  on  limitation 
to  ownership,  note  to,  291. 

Marv.  Karl,  on  competition,  20 ; 
term  for  production  under  it.  27. 

Mill.  .John  Stuart,  on  law  of  private 
property.  155. 

Morier,  R.  IJ.  D.,  conversions  of 
public  duties  to  private  rights, 
121);  on  feudal  tenure,  135;  iiow 
peasjints  became  serfs,  136,  1.'17  ; 
peasants"  war,  138. 

Market,  origin  of,  43;  law  of,  su- 
preme in  I'liilcd  States,  45;  the 
only  justification  of  rack  rent, 
reduces  land  to  a  commodity,  45; 
afTc'tcd  by  nianipidation,  2.'{5. 

Mercuiy,  tlie|ialron  of  cheating,  44. 

Machinery.  e(Ti<i  on  prorhiction,  8.'! : 
pn;jinliee  of  workers  against,  !••) ; 
to  answer  claim  of  CJipiUil,  must 


become  equivalent  to  "perpetual 
motion,"  91,  92. 
Money  and  credit,  210;  not  sati.s- 
faction,  217,  218;  wli.^n  variable 
affects  credits  most  deeply,  219; 
what  IS  pure  credit  money  ?  220 , 
of  the  future  will  be  based  on 
labor,  not  gold,  227 ;  metallic, 
an  Lnecpial  standard  and  decep- 
tive base,  243. 

X.\Tri{AL  Selectiox,  progress 
through,  180  ;  limit  to,  181 ;  pr.  - 
fessor  Sumner  on,  182-184. 

Niebulir  on  purpose  of  agrarian 
laws,  146 ;  mistaken  as  to  a 
practicable  agrarian  law,  149. 

Opportcxity,  no  equality  of  under 
existing  laws  of  tenure,  12. 

Occupation,  the  basis  of  true  own- 
ership, 125,  186,  187. 

Ownersliip  of  land  is  sovereignty, 
124;  only  a  life  tenancy,  133; 
private,  a  limitation  to  usurpa- 
tion, 156;  cannot  be  extended, 
157;  collective  limited,  158; 
abuses  under,  growing  intoler- 
able, 159. 

Parker,  TiiEonoRK,  thoughts  on 

labor,  note  to,  1 78,  309. 
Partnership  in  jiroduction,  1 94-1 99 ; 

practicviUv  admitted,  200,  201. 
Peasant  War,  138.  139. 
Perry,    Professor,    a    pure    school 

economist,  36;   his  discovery  in 

the  science.  244. 
Production,  one  principle  of,  in  all 

system.s,  28;  partnership  in,  191. 
Profit,  how  derived.  48;  not  pure 

when  compensating  service,  49, 

50;    a    fraudulent    cli;irge,    50; 

cannot  lioneslly  exist,  5.'! ;  intcr- 

ciiangeablo    witli     interest    and 

rent,  54. 

QiESN'^Y,  the  originator  of  eco- 
iiiMuical  science,  32;  tlio  school 
of,  souglit  to  establish  C(|ual 
rights,  33,  31, 


320 


INDEX. 


Rent,  the  paying  for  land  by  ia- 
stiilments,  46 ;  how  derived,  48  ; 
the  conversion  of  public  tax,  51 ; 
the  despair  of  science,  the  price 
of  monopoly,  7 1 ;  unnecessary, 
80;  depends  on  necessity  of  bor- 
rowers, 81. 

Ricardu,  specious  theory  of  rent, 
67,  68 ;  shown  to  bo  erroneous, 
69;  practical  test,  72;  on  nat- 
ural rate  of  wages,  132. 

Rights,  natural,  name  given  their 
science  by  the  Frcncli  econo- 
mists, 33,  38. 

Say,  J.  B.,  right  to  laud,  125; 
source  of  value,  229. 

Scluirz,  Carl,  corruption  of  the  land 
office,  145. 

Slave  trade  the  basis  of  many  fort- 
unes, 9 

iSmith,  Adam,  leader  of  English 
school,  35;  definition  of  a  cap- 
italist, 56;  on  natural  rate  of 
wages,  132;  animals,  other  than 
man,  do  not  trade,  251. 

Smith,  Gerritt,  favored  purchased 
emancipation  of  slaves,  276. 

Socialism,  compatible  with  individ- 
ualism, 40. 

Sumner,  Professor,  on  natural  se- 
lection, 182,  184. 

Taxation  as  a  remedy,  255;  a 
compulsory  exchange,  256;  es- 
sence of  despotic  power,  258; 
looked  to  by  tax  reformers  as  a 
sovereign  remedy,  258;  applica- 
tion of  "  death  rate  "  to,  260,  263; 
repudiated  by  nature,  and  always 
thrown  back  upon  labor.  261; 
once  tliought  necessary  to  sup- 
port a  cliurch — Mr.  Clark's  plan 
of  a  tax  of  twenty  per  cent,  262 : 
will  not  work  as  a  remedy  263, 
264;  of  land  values  would  in- 
crease rather  tliun  ameliorate  the 
sufferings  of  labor,  282-285. 

Turgot,  discijjle  of  Qucsnay  and 
minister  to  Louis  XVI.,  33,  34. 


Tender,  Legal,  not  necessary  to 
effect  exchanges,  222. 

Thornton  on  demand  and  supplj-,  19. 

Trutli,  a  moral  quality  essential  to 
any  scientific  inquiry,  52. 

Tools  in  production,  83 ;  improve- 
ment in  tliem  a  growth,  84;  con- 
sumed in  production  of  goods, 
92,  93 ;  Bastial'a  tlieory  of,  94. 

Utility,  according  to  Bentham, 
tlie  basis  of  morals,  and  to  Sav 
tiie  source  of  value  in  econom- 
ics, 229 ;  value  in,  230  ;  ratio  of, 
the  base  of  all  exactness  in  the 
science,  231 ;  only  exchangeable 
in  service,  239. 

Value,  228;  based  on  utility,  229; 
three  forms  of,  230  ;  of  land  and 
of  labor  under  subjection,  247 ; 
of  land  as  defined,  248;  of  a 
chattel,  250. 

WAGE.S,  nature  of,  96;  fund  not 
recognized  by  later  economists, 
an  exchange,  a  credit  on  an  ear- 
nest, 97-99  ;  natural,  the  whole 
product  of  labor,  100;  inequality 
in,  117,  118,  122;  modified  part- 
nership, 197 ;  seductive  nature 
of,  198. 

Wallace,  Alfred  Russell,  gives  a 
name  to  the  natural  law  of  land 
ownership,  note  to,  186;  on  na- 
tionalization of  the  land,  277-280; 
liis  plan  radically  ditferent  from 
that  of  Mr.  George,  279. 

War,  its  costs  and  sacrifices  borne 
by  industry,  8;  perpetual  be- 
tween primitive  societies,  43; 
Peasant,  138. 

Warren,  Josiah,  cost  the  limit  of 
price,  note  to,  14. 

Wealth,  race  for,  12;  conservation 
of,  76-79;  private,  largely  the 
creation  of  law,  109:  such  may 
be  destroyed  without  loss  to  so- 
ciety, 109-112. 


A'* 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  AT  LOS  ANGELES 

THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


2 


41962 

DISCHARGE- 


AUR  2  7  1979 


liRl 


JJ^^     InsalU  . 


II        III 


L  Lrunnn  r   TMUILI  I  T 


AA    000  494  618 


JAY  p  4  191" 


I'EMco 


214N 


HB 

171.7 

I45s 


I 


#- 


"S'^- 


